Segmenting on Paths in Flow Visualization
Recently, Adobe updated the Analysis Workspace Flow visualization to offer more flexibility, especially when it comes to repeat instances. Many Adobe Analytics users have wanted to abandon the pathing reports in the old interface and rely solely on Flow in Analysis Workspace, but were held back by the fact that repeat instances of values passed into Adobe Analytics would appear multiple times consecutively. This made using Flow difficult at times, but now Adobe has changed Flow visualizations so that repeat instances are disabled by default:
This makes Flow much more useful when it comes to pages and any other dimension for which you want to see sequences of values.
Another thing that this change enables is easier segmentation on paths. There may be times when you would like to view a specific path flow visitors are taking and build a segment for that path to learn more about that cohort of visitors in other Adobe Analytics reports. This is possible by simply right-clicking on any path in the Flow visualization. For example, if I wanted to look at how visitors were navigating from the Analytics Demystified home page to our education page (highlighting some of my upcoming training classes), I can build a simple flow report like this:
From here, all I have to do is right-click on the path I want and Adobe will automatically create a sequential segment for me:
Once I am in the segment builder, I can name it and save it. If I want, I can also tweak it a bit. For example, if I want to see visitors who eventually found the education page within the visit, I can change the sequential segment like this:
Once the segment is saved, I can apply it to any other report in Adobe Analytics. For example, if I wanted to see which companies followed that path, I can use my Demandbase eVar to see the specific companies that might be interested in my education classes (hidden here to preserve their privacy!):
As you can see, creating segments on paths is pretty simple, but can be powerful. I suggest that you pick a few of your Adobe Analytics dimensions, add them to a Flow visualization and then try creating some segment paths.
