Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks - Show Visitor Behavior from Specific Countries

Problem:
We need to see the online behaviors of visitors from USA and Canada using Google Analytics. In other words we need a profile which only has traffic from USA and Canada.

Solution:
  1. Create a profile in Google Analytics in which you would like to capture visits from USA and Canada.
  2. Create a filter that includes visits from USA and Canada only (described below).

  3. Apply the filter to the profile that you would like to show the data in. (The filter is automatically applied to the profile that you use to create the filter).


Creating the filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only
  1. Filter Name: Give a Name to your Filter.

  2. Filter Type: Select “Custom Filter” and select “Include” in the radio button. We are creating a custom filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only.

  3. Filter Field: Select “Visitor Country” as the filter field. Visitor country is populated based on the IP address of the visitors.

  4. Filter Pattern: This is where you enter the country names. The small trick is with the format and finding out what to enter as the country names. In this case where I needed the visitor behavior from US and Canada, I used United States and Canada as the countries and my filter was
    (Canada|United States). () is required to group all the values together and | is used as on OR.
    So what this filter patter is telling is to match either one of the 2 values (Canada and United States) in the Filter Field (Visitor Country).


    Here is the final view


    Now the question is why did I enter United Sates and Not United States of America of USA or US?
    You need to enter what Google Analytics captures the country name as. To find out what you should enter in the country name, go to a profile that does not have any country filters. Go to Visitors --> Map Overlay and scroll down to see the names of the countries. Use the name exactly as it shows in this list.




More Google Analytics Tips.

Comments? Questions?

3 comments:

  1. Interestingly, it does expand the search a little on some filters...

    i.e. I filtered one on China and it has included Hong Kong and Macao. Not getting into the politics of it, but it isn't exactly how Google lists it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:49 PM

    Great way to segment. I also like to use this as a way to segment paid traffic against regular traffic, and to segment repeat vs new visitors.

    Good stuff!

    Rich Page Ramblings - Analytics & Reviews
    http://www.rich-page.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the insight into discovering the correct naming convention of a particular country — intuitive but not completely obvious!

    ReplyDelete

I would like to hear your comments and questions.