Google Analytics - How to choose between advanced segments and profiles ?

[Semetis]

Quizz - Can you share with us an advanced segment that you have created and that you find useful ?

[Semetis]

Thanks all for your constructive comments. Of course both are complimentary and the short video only lasts 1min46 when there are so many more things to talk about.

[juliencoquet]

While we're at it (and to rebound @MickeeMike) : profiles and filters are heavily page-view-based whereas segments are visit-based

Since you cannot cross the two without comparing apples and oranges, you cannot expect the same result from a profile and from a similar segment.

Also, and I fully understand this is meant as a short video, you should also explain that segments are complementary to profiles (provided of course that your historical data is collected properly from the start)

Cheers!

[MickeeMike]

Two major inconvenients to add for the segments:

1) they fail to output accurate data when there is too much data to analyze: for some reports, the estimations done by the google analytics system is far from the reality and aren't reliable. => To use with caution when data is extrapolated.

2) They are not applicable in the funnel reports, where for instance a segmentation by country is often useful

But I like both segments and profiles: they are very complimentary.

[juliencoquet]

@Semetis again: misleading if not using the API or data extraction ;-)

[juliencoquet]

Comparing 4 segments at a time is misleading since you at least use All Visits when comparing 2 segments or more.

So you're really comparing up to 3 segments with the All Visits segment.