Build an event segmentation analysis

  • Updated

This article will help you:

  • Use events and properties to create an Event Segmentation analysis

Amplitude’s Event Segmentation chart helps you identify the specific events fired in your product by specific groups of users. This article will outline the steps required to build a segmentation analysis in Amplitude.

Before you begin

If you haven’t already read the overview of Amplitude’s Event Segmentation chart, you should do so before proceeding. You'll also want to read up on the basics of building charts in Amplitude.

Set up an event segmentation analysis

An event segmentation analysis shows what different groups of users are doing in your product. You’ll need to tell Amplitude what events you're interested in, and which users it should include in the analysis.

NOTE: You can include both active and inactive events in your segmentation analyses, but most customers find their Amplitude charts are more insightful when they focus on active events.

To build an Event Segmentation chart, follow these steps:

  1. In the Events Module, select the starting event or metric. You can choose a specific event that is instrumented in Amplitude, or you can tell Amplitude to consider any event as the starting event for this analysis, by selecting Any Event from the list of available events.

    You can also create an in-line custom event or create a new metric at this point, if you need to.

  2. If desired, add properties to your starting event by clicking on + Filter by, selecting the property name, and specifying the property value you’re interested in.
  3. Next, select another event to include, if desired. You can choose up to ten, and you can add properties to these events as well.
  4. In the Measured As Module, specify how you'd like to measure your results. Unique users and event totals are the most commonly-used, but you have several other options to select from. For details, see the Choose the right measurement section below.
  5. In the Segmentation Module, identify the user segment you want to include in this analysis. You can import a previously-saved segment by clicking Saved and selecting the one you want from the list. Otherwise, Amplitude begins from the assumption that your analysis will target all users.

    NOTE: The user segment you select will apply to all selected events. 

  6. If you do not want to import a previously-saved user segment, you can start building your own by adding properties. To do so, click + Filter by, choose the property you want to include, and specify the property value you’re interested in.
  7. You can narrow your focus even further by telling Amplitude you only want to include users who have already performed certain actions. To do so, click + Performed, then choose the event you’re interested in.
  8. If desired, add another user segment by clicking + Add Segment, and repeating steps 6 and 7.

NOTE: You can break out your starting event by user properties by clicking Group segment by in the Segmentation Module, if desired. For example, if you wanted to group users by the cities they were in when they triggered the starting event, you would select City from the property list. Amplitude will then break out the segmentation analysis on a city-by-city basis.

In the chart area, you should now see your Event Segmentation chart, along with a tabular view of your results.

To learn how to interpret your event segmentation analysis, check out this Help Center article. FAQs about the Event Segmentation chart can also be found here.

Choose the right measurement

Amplitude offers you several different ways of looking at your event segmentation results. In this section, we'll explain the differences between them.

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Uniques

The default measure for the Event Segmentation chart, it displays the total count of unique users in your segment who triggered the event you added in the Events Module. View the exact count by simply hovering over the specific data point you’re interested in. If you want to inspect the users who make up that data point, just click on it (see our Help Center article on Amplitude’s Microscope feature to learn more).

Event Totals

Like Uniques, Event Totals is a straightforward, count-based measure. The difference is that instead of counting unique users, it graphs the total count of times a specific event was fired at each data point.

Active %

This measure graphs the percentage of all active users (defined as users who have triggered any active event in a specified time frame) who triggered a specific event at each data point.

Average

The Average measure graphs the average number of times a specific event was triggered. Here, the "average" for any data point is equal to its event totals divided by unique users.

Frequency

When you apply the Frequency measure, Amplitude will group the users included in your user segment into buckets defined by the number of times each has triggered an event during the time frame of your analysis.

new_event_seg_screenshot.png

Here, we see an event segmentation analysis using the Frequency measure. Each stacked area represents a "frequency bucket." For each data point, Amplitude displays the number of users contained in that bucket. And as described above, if you want to learn more about the users in a particular data point, all you have to do is click on it.

In the screenshot above, the default buckets are represented by the colored dots. Click customize buckets to adjust the sizing of the buckets and distribution of the data, or use the Custom Buckets modal to set individual ranges for each bucket.

Properties

Depending on the details of your analysis, you may also be able to generate an event segmentation chart based on the values of your event or user properties.

  • Sum of Property Value: Graphs the sum of property values at each data point. To use this measure, the property value must be an integer.
  • Distribution of Property Value: Shows the distribution of event totals broken out by the values of the selected event property. The minimum value is inclusive, and the maximum value is exclusive.
  • Average of Property Value: Graphs the average of the property values, or the sum of those values divided by the total number of events fired at each data point. To use this measure, the property value must be an integer.
  • Distinct Property Values per User: Graphs the average count of different property values triggered by each user. More specifically, it's the total sum of unique user-distinct property value pairs, divided by the number of users.
  • Median Property Value: Graphs the median property values for each data point. This is most useful in situations where averages might be noticeably skewed by outliers. To use this measure, the property value must be an integer.

Formula

This option is accessible from the Advanced drop-down menu in the Measured As Module. In an Event Segmentation chart, you can write formulas that Amplitude will apply to the events you've included in your analysis. To read more about each formula and see some examples of use cases, see our Custom Formulas article.