How to Analyze the Effects of OptinMonster Campaigns on User Behavior

Do you know what your users do after they interact with your OptinMonster campaign?

For instance, is there a difference between the behaviors of the users who view an optin versus the users who don’t? What about the behaviors of users who choose to optin instead of opting out?

You’re curious now, aren’t you?

In this guide, you’ll learn how to create a Google Analytics segment to analyze user behavior. We’ll walk you through the process step-by-step, and show you which reports are going to be your new best friends.

affinity categories report

After that, we’ll share some tips on how to encourage the user behaviors you actually want.

What is Behavioral Segmentation?

Behavioral segmentation is segmentation based on patterns of behavior displayed by customers as they interact with your company. Essentially, it’s grouping customers by what they do, the actions they take when dealing they engage with your company and brand.

segment your visitors to increase conversions

Segmenting customers by behavior offers 4 main advantages:

  • Personalization. You can create custom offers for different groups of customers based on how those customers should be targeted.
  • Predictive. It’s easier to predict and influence future customer behaviors and outcomes when you have historical behavior data.
  • Prioritization. You’ll identify high-value customer segments and initiatives so you know where and when to invest your marketing dollars to get the greatest return on investment.
  • Performance. You can track performance against goals over time by monitoring growth patterns and changes in key customer segments.

Segmenting by Behavior Using Google Analytics

You already track customer behavior in several ways. For example, whenever you look at any of these things you’re analyzing user behavior:

  • Bounce rates
  • Users that visited certain pages
  • Users that visited pages in a certain order
  • Users who stayed on your site a certain amount of time

The list goes on and on. But what about the behaviors of users who are, due to split-testing, shown a particular optin campaign on your site versus the users who aren’t? What do their behaviors tell us?

Let’s find out.

Before we get started, you’ll want to make sure you have your Google Analytics added to your OptinMonster campaign.

Step 1. Create a Segment

Sign in to your Google Analytics account and open the View whose data you want to analyze.

select google analytics view

Go to Reports » Behavior Overview and click +Add Segment. You can select any report grouping, we just chose to go to this one.

open reports and add segment

This will bring up a list of possible segments. We want to click the red + New Segment button to create a new segment.

click new segment

From here, you have countless ways to segment your site visitors to fine-tune your analysis. Be sure to name your segment and Save it!

google analytics segment builder

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Step 2. Add Options and Filters

We know that we need at least one segment because we want to track the behavior of visitors who view a particular optin, so let’s go ahead and add the options to build out that segment.

To do that, click on Conditions and select Event Category is one of from the dropdowns in the center. Then, start typing your campaign name in the text field and select it from the list that appears.

add conditions

Click Save and you’ll see the reporting for your segment which consists of visitors who have viewed your selected campaign.

Step 3. Duplicating a Segment

Now, do the same thing for visitors who haven’t viewed the campaign. To do that, you can easily duplicate the segment we already created from the screen that appeared when you saved it.

Just click on the downward arrow to the right of the campaign name you want to copy and select Copy. Give it a new name, enter your conditions, and click save. Your report will populate with data from both segments.

how to create a google analytics segment copy

Understanding the Data

Now that you have the data at your fingertips, what do you do with it?

For starters, check out some of the Flow reports from Google Analytics. These literally tell you how the users flowed on your site based on how you want to view the data. You can also see where the users dropped off.

user flow report

There are also other ways of looking at behavior for your segments.

audience engagement reporting

There’s also this really cool thing called Cohort Analysis in the Audience section that lets you track by User Retention, among other measures. This analysis works well with segments and allows you to identify at what rates you lose users so you can better understand the growth rate you need for your business.

cohort analysis

This also allows for a faster response to short-term marketing efforts like single-day email or optin campaigns and lets you track the behavior of just the users you gained from those efforts.

There you have it! Google Analytics and OptinMonster together are a wonderful and powerful thing. If you haven’t started using Google Analytics to track your OptinMonster conversions, check out this step-by-step guide.

Already got that going on? Cool. Then let’s talk about how you can get actionable insights with a custom Google Analytics dashboard.

If you run your site on WordPress you should definitely add MonsterInsights into the mix; you’ll love being able to track your analytics without having to leave WordPress.

Jacinda Santora
Jacinda Santora is a writer specializing in eCommerce and growth marketing. She prides herself on her ability to make complicated things easier. When she isn't writing you can find her daydreaming about campervans, drinking coffee, and listening to podcasts.

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Comments

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  2. Hi! Can you please update this to Google Analytics 4? Everything is different now 🙁

    1. Nathan Thompson
      Nathan Thompson June 21, 2021 at 10:33 am

      Hey Caroline, Thanks for the comment! We’ll likely update this in the near future as GA4 continues to roll out. That said, you can still use Universal Analytics for tracking (both with or without GA4), even if you’re just starting out! For more information on that, check out this helpful tutorial from Google’s documentation. Thanks!

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