Segments
Compare how different visitors behave
A single conversion rate for your whole audience is an average of groups behaving differently. It describes nobody, and it points at no particular action. Segments split them apart.
Mobile against desktop
The split that most often explains a disappointing conversion rate.
Two segments, the same five metrics, and the ratio between them in the last column.
01
The gap is the number, not either side
The interesting figure in a comparison is rarely either value on its own. It is the ratio between them, and whether that ratio is bigger than you expected. Desktop converting 3.2x better than mobile is not a rounding difference and it is not explained by mobile visitors being less interested: it is a specific, findable problem in a specific place, and the funnel will say which step. A ratio near 1.0 is just as useful, because it tells you the split you were worried about is not the one causing the problem.
- Visitors1.2x
- Conversion3.2x
- Bounce rate1.4x
- Pages per visit1.8x
- Week 1 retention1.5x
02
Equal traffic is not equal intent
Organic search and paid campaigns can look comparable in a channel report and behave nothing alike underneath it. Here the paid group bounces almost twice as often, reads half as many pages and has largely gone by week one. Averaged into a single acquisition number, that group quietly lowers every metric on the site and gives no indication of where the loss came from.
- Visitors5,412 / 1,072
- Conversion3.4% / 2.1%
- Bounce rate33.1% / 58.4%
- Pages per visit3.1 / 1.6
- Week 1 retention44% / 19%
03
The best-converting segment is usually one you already have
Returning visitors convert several times better than new ones on almost every site, which is an argument for retention work rather than for more traffic. Because a segment filters the audience rather than the report, the same group can be pushed straight through the funnel and the cohort table without being rebuilt for either.
- Visitors3,180 / 9,302
- Conversion8.2% / 2.4%
- Bounce rate28.6% / 44.0%
- Pages per visit4.2 / 2.2
- Week 1 retention63% / 24%
A segment is a filter on the audience, not a separate report
Segments are built from behaviour (returning visitors, people who viewed pricing), from acquisition (organic search, a named referrer, a UTM campaign), from context (country, device, browser) or from rules combining those. Because they filter the audience, the same segment applies to traffic, funnels and retention. What they cannot do is follow a person: identity is derived without cookies and rotates daily, so a segment is a description of a group in a range rather than a list of people you could look up later.
Questions about segments
These are on the guides index too, alongside every other question the site answers.
What is user segmentation?
Splitting your audience into groups that behave differently, then running the same reports against a group instead of against everybody. A segment is a filter on the audience, not a separate report.
Which segments are worth building first?
Three usually pay for themselves immediately: mobile against desktop, returning against new, and your largest acquisition channel against the rest. Add your own once you notice a question you keep asking.
Can segments be applied to funnels and retention?
Yes. Because a segment filters the audience rather than the report, the same group can be applied to traffic, to funnel steps and to retention cohorts.
Related
Build your first segment
Mobile against desktop takes one filter and usually explains more than a week of guessing.
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