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• How to Check Website Traffic As Accurately As Possible

  18 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  If you want to learn about the health of your website and the success of your digital marketing initiatives, there are few better ways than checking your website traffic. 

  It’s a great way to get a quick dopamine hit when things are up, but you can also use traffic levels to identify issues, learn more about your users or benchmark your performance. That means you need a reliable and easy way to check your website traffic over time — as well as a way to check out your competitors’ traffic levels, too. 

  In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that. You’ll learn how to check website traffic for both your and your competitor’s sites and discover why some methods of checking website traffic are better than others. 

  Why check website traffic ? 

  Dopamine hits aside, it’s important to constantly monitor your website’s traffic for several reasons.

  

  Benchmark site performance

  Keeping regular tabs on your traffic levels is a great way to track your website’s performance over time. It can help you plan for the future or identify problems. 

  For instance, growing traffic levels may mean expanding your business’s offering or investing in more inventory. On the flip side, decreasing traffic levels may suggest it’s time to revamp your marketing strategies or look into issues impacting your SEO. 

  Analyse user behaviour

  Checking website traffic and user behaviour lets marketing managers understand how users interact with your website. Which pages are they visiting ? Which CTAs do they click on ? What can you do to encourage users to take the actions you want ? You can also identify issues that lead to high bounce rates and other problems. 

  The better you understand user behaviour, the easier it will be to give them what they want. For example, you may find that users spend more time on your landing pages than they do your blog pages. You could use that information to revise how you create blog posts or focus on creating more landing pages. 

  Improve the user experience

  Once you understand how users behave on your website, you can use that information to fix errors, update your content and improve the user experience for the site. 

  You can even personalise the experience for customers, leading to significant growth. Research shows companies that grow faster derive 40% more of their revenue from personalisation. 

  That could come in the form of sweeping personalisations — like rearranging your website’s navigation bar based on user behaviour — or individual personalisation that uses analytics to transform sections or entire pages of your site based on user behaviour. 

  Optimise marketing strategies

  You can use website traffic reports to understand where users are coming from and optimise your marketing plan accordingly. You may want to double down on organic traffic, for instance, or invest more in PPC advertising. Knowing current traffic estimates and how these traffic levels have trended over time can help you benchmark your campaigns and prioritise your efforts. 

  Increasing traffic levels from other countries can also help you identify new marketing opportunities. If you start seeing significant traffic levels from a neighbouring country or a large market, it could be time to take your business international and launch a cross-border campaign. 

  Filter unwanted traffic

  A not-insignificant portion of your site’s traffic may be coming from bots and other unwanted sources. These can compromise the quality of your analytics and make it harder to draw insights. You may not be able to get rid of this traffic, but you can use analytics tools to remove it from your stats. 

  How to check website traffic on Matomo

  If you want to check your website’s traffic, you’d be forgiven for heading to Google Analytics first. It’s the most popular analytics tool on the market, after all. But if you want a more reliable assessment of your website’s traffic, then we recommend using Matomo alongside Google Analytics. 

  The Matomo web analytics platform is an open-source solution that helps you collect accurate data about your website’s traffic and make more informed decisions as a result — all while enhancing the customer experience and ensuring GDPR compliance and user privacy. 

  Matomo also offers multiple ways to check website traffic :

  • Visits log report
  • Real-time visitor map
  • Visits in real-time report

  Let’s look at all of them one by one. 

  The visits log report is a unique rundown of all of the individual visitors to your site. This offers a much more granular view than other tools that just show the total number of visitors for a given period. 

  

  You can access the visits log report by clicking on the reporting menu, then clicking Visitor and Visits Log. From there, you’ll be able to scroll through every user session and see the following information :

  • The location of the user
  • The total number of actions they took
  • The length of time on site
  • How they arrived at your site
  • And the device they used to access your site 

  This may be overwhelming if your site receives thousands of visitors at a time. But it’s a great way to understand users at an individual level and appreciate the lifetime activity of specific users. 

  The Real-time visitor map is a visual display of users’ location for a given timeframe. If you have an international website, it’s a fantastic way to see exactly where in the world your traffic comes from.

  

  You can access the Real-time Visitor Map by clicking Visitor in the main navigation menu and then Real-time Map. The map itself is colour-coded. Larger orange bubbles represent recent visits, and smaller dark orange and grey bubbles represent older visits. The map will refresh every five seconds, and new users appear with a flashing effect. 

  If you run TV or radio adverts, Matomo’s Real-time Map provides an immediate read on the effectiveness of your campaign. If your map lights up in the minutes following your ad, you know it’s been effective. It can also help you identify the source of bot attacks, too. 

  Finally, the Visits in Real-time report provides a snapshot of who is browsing your website. You can access this report under Visitors > Real-time and add it to your custom dashboards as a widget. 

  Open the report, and you’ll see the real-time flow of your site’s users and counters for visits and pageviews over the last 30 minutes and 24 hours. The report refreshes every five seconds with new users added to the top of the report with a fade-in effect.

  

  The report provides a snapshot of each visitor, including :

  • Whether they are new or a returning 
  • Their country
  • Their browser
  • Their operating system
  • The number of actions they took
  • The time they spent on the site
  • The channel they came in from
  • Whether the visitor converted a goal

  3 other ways to check website traffic

  You don’t need to use Matomo to check your website traffic. Here are three other tools you can use instead. 

  How to check website traffic on Google Analytics

  Google Analytics is usually the first starting point for anyone looking to check their website traffic. It’s free to use, incredibly popular and offers a wide range of traffic reports. 

  Google Analytics lets you break down historical traffic data almost any way you wish. You can split traffic by acquisition channel (organic, social media, direct, etc.) by country, device or demographic.

  

  It also provides real-time traffic reports that give you a snapshot of users on your site right now and over the last 30 minutes. 

  

  Google Analytics may be one of the most popular ways to check website traffic, but it could be better. Google Analytics 4 is difficult to use compared to its predecessor, and it also limits the amount of data you can track in accordance with privacy laws. If users refuse your cookie consent, Google Analytics won’t record these visits. In other words, you aren’t getting a complete view of your traffic by using Google Analytics alone. 

  That’s why it’s important to use Google Analytics alongside other web analytics tools (like Matomo) that don’t suffer from the same privacy issues. That way, you can make sure you track every single user who visits your site. 

  How to check website traffic on Google Search Console

  Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets you analyse the search traffic that your site gets from Google. 

  The top-line report shows you how many times your website has appeared in Google Search, how many clicks it has received, the average clickthrough rate and the average position of your website in the search results. 

  

  Google Search Console is a great way to understand what you rank for and how much traffic your organic rankings generate. It will also show you which pages are indexed in Google and whether there are any crawling errors. 

  Unfortunately, Google Search Console is limited if you want to get a complete view of your traffic. While you can analyse search traffic in a huge amount of detail, it will not tell you how users who access your website directly or via social media behave. 

  How to check website traffic on Similarweb

  Similarweb is a website analysis tool that estimates the total traffic of any site on the internet. It is one of the best tools for estimating how much traffic your competitors receive. 

  What’s great about Similarweb is that it estimates total traffic, not just traffic from search engines like many SEO tools. It even breaks down traffic by different channels, allowing you to see how your website compares against your competitors. 

  

  As you can see from the image above, Similarweb provides an estimate of total visits, bounce rate, the average number of pages users view per visit and the average duration on the site. The company also has a free browser extension that lets you check website traffic estimates as you browse the web. 

  You can use Similarweb for free to a point. But to really get the most out of this tool, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan which starts at $125 per user per month. 

  The price isn’t the only downside of using Similarweb to check the traffic of your own and your competitor’s websites. Ultimately, Similarweb is only an estimate — even if it’s a reasonably accurate one — and it’s no match for a comprehensive analytics tool. 

  7 website traffic metrics to track

  Now that you know how to check your website’s traffic, you can start to analyse it. You can use plenty of metrics to assess the quality of your website traffic, but here are some of the most important metrics to track. 

  • New visitors : These are users who have never visited your website before. They are a great sign that your marketing efforts are working and your site is reaching more people. But it’s also important to track how they behave on the website to ensure your site caters effectively to new visitors. 
  • Returning visitors : Returning visitors are coming back to your site for a reason : either they like the content you’re creating or they want to make a purchase. Both instances are great. The more returning visitors, the better. 
  • Bounce rate : This is a measure of how many users leave your website without taking action. Different analytics tools measure this metric differently.
  • Session duration : This is the length of time users spend on your website, and it can be a great gauge of whether they find your site engaging. Especially when combined with the metric below. 
  • Pages per session : This measures how many different pages users visit on average. The more pages they visit and the longer users spend on your website, the more engaging it is. 
  • Traffic source : Traffic can come from a variety of sources (organic, direct, social media, referral, etc.) Tracking which sources generate the most traffic can help you analyse and prioritise your marketing efforts. 
  • User demographics : This broad metric tells you more about who the users are that visit your website, what device they use, what country they come from, etc. While the bulk of your website traffic will come from the countries you target, an influx of new users from other countries can open the door to new opportunities.

  Why do my traffic reports differ ?

  If you use more than one of the methods above to check your website traffic, you’ll quickly realise that every traffic report differs. In some cases, the reasons are obvious. Any tool that estimates your traffic without adding code to your website is just that : an estimate. Tools like Similarweb will never offer the accuracy of analytics platforms like Matomo and Google Analytics. 

  But what about the differences between these analytics platforms themselves ? While each platform has a different way of recording user behaviour, significant differences in website traffic reports between analytics platforms are usually a result of how each platform handles user privacy. 

  A platform like Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner to track them. If they accept, great. Google collects all of the data that any other analytics platform does. It may even collect more. If users reject cookie consent banners, however, then Google Analytics can’t track these visitors at all. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports. 

  That doesn’t happen with all analytics platforms, however. A privacy-focused alternative like Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany) and can therefore continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen from Google Analytics. This means that virtually all of your website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner or not. And it’s why traffic reports in Matomo are often much higher than they are in Google Analytics.

  

  Given that around half (47.32%) of adults in the European Union refuse to allow the use of personal data tracking for advertising purposes and that 95% of people will reject additional cookies when it is easy to do so, this means you could have vastly different traffic reports — and be missing out on a significant amount of user data. 

  If you’re serious about using web analytics to improve your website and optimise your marketing campaigns, then it is essential to use another analytics platform alongside Google Analytics. 

  Get more accurate traffic reports with Matomo

  There are several methods to check website traffic. Some, like Similarweb, can provide estimates on your competitors’ traffic levels. Others, like Google Analytics, are free. But data doesn’t lie. Only privacy-focused analytics solutions like Matomo can provide accurate reports that account for every visitor. 

  Join over one million organisations using Matomo to accurately check their website traffic. Try it for free alongside GA today. No credit card required. 

• LGPD : Demystifying Brazil’s New Data Protection Law

  31 août 2023, par Erin — Privacy

  The General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD or Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais) is a relatively new legislation passed by the Brazilian government in 2018. The law officially took effect on September 18, 2020, but was not enforced until August 1, 2021, due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.

  For organisations that do business in Brazil and collect personal data, the LGPD has far-reaching implications, with 65 separate articles that outline how organisations must collect, process, disclose and erase personal data.

  In this article, you’ll learn what the LGPD is, including its contents and how a legal entity can be compliant.

  What is the LGPD ?

  The LGPD is a new data protection and privacy law passed by the Federal Brazilian Government on May 29, 2018. The purpose of the law is to unify the 40 previous Brazilian laws that regulated the processing of personal data.

  

  Many of the older laws have been either updated or removed to accommodate this change. The LGPD comprises 65 separate articles, and each covers a different area of the legislation, such as the rights of data subjects and the legal bases on which personal data may be collected. It also sets out the responsibilities of the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD), a newly created agency responsible for the guidance, supervision and enforcement of the LGPD.

  LGPD compliance is essential for organisations wishing to operate in Brazil and collect personal data for commercial purposes, whether online or offline. However, understanding the different rules and regulations and even figuring out if the LGPD applies to you can be challenging.

  Fortunately, the LGPD is relatively easy to understand and shares many similarities with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the data protection law implemented on May 25, 2018, by the European Union. This may help you better understand why the LGPD was enacted, the policies it contains and the goals it hopes to achieve. Both laws are very similar, but some items are unique to Brazil, such as what qualifies as a legal basis for collecting personal data.

  For these reasons, organisations should not apply a one-size-fits-all approach to GDPR and LGPD compliance, for they are different laws with different guiding principles and requirements.

  Who does the LGPD apply to, and who is exempt ?

  The LGPD applies to any natural person, public entity and private entity that collects, processes and stores personal data for commercial purposes within the national territory of Brazil. The same also applies to those who process the personal data of Brazilian and non-Brazilian citizens within the national territory of Brazil, even if the data processor is outside of Brazil. It also applies to those who process personal data collected from the national territory of Brazil.

  So, what does this all mean ? 

  Regardless of your location, if you conduct any personal data processing activities in Brazil or you process data that was collected from Brazil, then there is a high possibility that the LGPD applies to you. This is especially true if the data processing is for commercial purposes ; or, to be more precise, for the offering or provision of goods or services. It also means that subjects whose personal data is collected under these conditions are protected by the nine data subject rights.

  There are exceptions where the LGPD does not apply to data processors. These include if you process personal data for private or non-commercial reasons ; for artistic, journalistic and select academic purposes ; and for the purpose of state security, public safety, national defence and activities related to the investigation and prosecution of criminal offenders. Also, if the processed data originates from a country with similar data protection laws to Brazil, such as any country in the European Union (where the GDPR applies), then the LGPD will not apply to that individual or organisation.

  For these reasons, it is vital that you are familiar with the LGPD so that your data processing activities comply with the new standards. This is also important for the future, as an estimated 75% of the global population’s personal data will be protected by a privacy regulation. Getting things right now will make life easier moving forward.

  What are the nine LGPD data subject rights ?

  The LGPD has nine data subject rights. These protect the rights and freedoms of subjects, regardless of their political opinion and religious belief.

  

  These rights, listed under Article 19 of the LGPD, confirm that a data subject has the right to :

  1. Confirm the processing of their data.
  2. Access their data.
  3. Correct data that is incomplete, not accurate and out of date.
  4. Anonymize, block and delete data that is excessive, unnecessary and was not processed in compliance with the law.
  5. Move their data to a different service provider or product provider by special request.
  6. Delete or stop using personal data under certain circumstances.
  7. Gain information about who the data processor has shared the processed data with, including private and public entities.
  8. Be informed as to what the consequences may be for denying consent to the collection of personal data.
  9. Revoke consent to have their personal data processed under certain conditions.

  Many of these data subject rights are like the GDPR. For example, both the GDPR and LGPD give data subjects the right to be informed, the right to access, the right to data portability and the right to rectify false data. However, while the LGPD has nine data subject rights, the GDPR has only eight. What is the extra data subject right ? The right to gain information on who a data processor has shared your data with.

  There are other slight differences between the GDPR and LGPD with regard to data subject rights. For instance, the GDPR has a clear right to restrict certain data processing activities, such as those related to automation. The LGPD has this, too. But the subject of data collection automation is under Article 20, separate from all the data subject rights listed under Article 19.

  Under what conditions can personal data in Brazil be processed ?

  There are various conditions under which organisations can legally conduct personal data processing in Brazil. The aim of these conditions is to give data subjects confidence — that their personal data is processed for only safe, legal and ethical reasons. Also, the conditions help data processors, both individuals and organisations, determine if they have a legal basis for processing personal data in or in relation to Brazil.

  

  According to Article 7 of the LGPD, data processing may only be carried out if done :

  1. With consent by the data subject.
  2. To comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  3. By public authorities to assist with the execution of a public policy, one established by law or regulation.
  4. To help research entities carry out studies ; granted, when possible, subjects can anonymize their data.
  5. To carry out a contract or preliminary procedure, in particular, one related to a contract where the data subject is a party.
  6. To exercise the right of an arbitration, administration or judicial procedure.
  7. To protect the physical safety or life of someone
  8. To protect the health of someone about to undergo a procedure performed by health entities
  9. To fulfill the legitimate interests of a data processor, unless doing so would compromise a data subject’s fundamental rights and liberties.
  10. To protect one’s credit score.

  Much like the nine data subject rights, there are key differences between the LGPD and GDPR. The GDPR has six lawful bases for data processing, while the LGPD has ten. One notable addition to the LGPD is for the protection of one’s credit score, which is not covered by the GDPR. Another reason to ensure compliance with both data protection laws separately.

  LGPD vs. GDPR : How do they differ ?

  The LGPD was modeled closely on the GDPR, so it’s no surprise the two are similar. 

  Both laws ensure a high level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects. They outline the legal justifications for data processing, establish the responsibilities of a data protection authority and lay out the penalties for non-compliance. That said, there are key differences between them.

  First, data subject rights ; the LGPD has nine, while the GDPR has eight. The GDPR gives data subjects the right to request a human review of automated decision-making, while the LGPD does not. Second, the legal bases for processing ; the LGPD has ten, while the GDPR has six. The four legal bases unique to the LGPD are : for protection of credit, for protection of health, for protection of life and for research entities carrying out studies.

  Both the LGPD and GDPR have different non-compliance penalties. The maximum fine for an infraction under the GDPR is up to €20 million (or 4% of the offender’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher). The maximum fine for an LGPD infraction is up to 50 million reais (around €9.2 million), or up to 2% of an offender’s revenue in Brazil, whichever is higher.

  6 steps to LGPD compliance with Matomo

  Below are steps you can follow to ensure your organisation is LGPD compliant. You’ll also learn how Matomo can help you comply quickly and easily.

  

  Let’s dive in.

  1. Appoint a DPO

  A DPO is a person, group, or organisation that communicates with data processors, data subjects, and the ANDP.

  Curiously, the LGPD lets you appoint your own DPO — even if they reside out of Brazil. So if the LGPD applies to you, you can appoint someone in your organisation to be a DPO. Just make sure that the nominated person has the understanding and capacity to perform the role’s duties.

  2. Assess your data

  Once you’re familiar with the LGPD and confirm your eligibility for LGPD compliance, take the time to assess your data. If you plan to collect data within the territory of Brazil, you’ll need to confirm the exact location of your data subjects. 

  To do this in Matomo, simply go to the previous year’s calendar. Then click on visitors, go to locations, and look for Brazil under the “Region” section. This will tell you how many of your web visitors are located in Brazil.

  

  3. Review privacy practices

  Review your existing privacy policies and practices, as there’s a good chance they’ll need to be updated to comply with the LGPD. Also, review your data sharing and third-party agreements, as you may need to communicate these new policies to partners that you rely on to deliver your services. 

  Lastly, review your procedures for tracking personal data and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). You may need to modify the type of data that you track to comply with the LGPD. You may even be tracking this data without your knowledge.

  4. Anonymize tracking data

  Data subjects under the LGPD have the right to request data anonymity. Therefore, to be LGPD compliant, your organisation must be able to accommodate for such a request.

  Fortunately, Matomo has various data anonymization techniques that help you protect your data subject’s privacy and comply with the LGPD. These techniques include the ability to anonymize previously tracked raw data, anonymize visitor IP addresses, and anonymize relevant geo-location data such as regions, cities and countries.

  

  You can find these features and more under the Anonymize data tab within the Privacy menu on the Matomo Settings page. Learn more about how to configure privacy settings in Matomo.

  5. Comply with LGPD consent laws without cookies

  By using Matomo to anonymize the data of your data subjects, this enables you to comply with LGPD consent laws and remove the need to display cookie consent banners on your website. This is made possible by the fact that Matomo is a cookieless tracking web analytics platform.

  Unlike other web analytics platforms like Google Analytics, which collect and use third-party cookies (persistent data that remains on your device, until that data expires or until you manually delete it) for their “own purposes,” Matomo is different. We use alternative means to identify web visitors, such as count the number of unique IP addresses and perform browser fingerprinting, neither of which involve the collection of personal data.

  As a result, you don’t have to display cookie consent banners on your website, and you can track your web visitors even if they disable cookies.

  6. Give users the right to opt-out

  Under the LGPD, data subjects have the right to opt-out of your data collection procedures. For this reason, make sure that your web visitors can do this on your website.

  

  You can do this in Matomo by adding an opt-out from tracking form to your website. To do this, click on the cog icon in the top menu, load the settings page, and click on the Users opt-out menu item in the Privacy section. Then follow the instructions to customise and publish the Matomo opt-out form.

  Achieve LGPD compliance with Matomo

  Like GDPR for Europe, the LGPD will impact organisations doing business in Brazil. And while they both share much of the same definitions and data subject rights, they differ on what qualifies as a legal basis for processing sensitive data. Complying with the GDPR and LGPD separately is non-negotiable and essential to avoiding maximum fines of €20 million and €9.2 million, respectively.

  

  As a web analytics platform with LGPD compliance, Matomo prioritises data privacy without compromising performance. Switch to a powerful LGPD-compliant web analytics platform that respects users’ privacy. 

  Get a 21-day free trial of Matomo today. No credit card required.

  Disclaimer

  We are not lawyers and don’t claim to be. The information provided here is to help give an introduction to LGPD. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns.

• 10 Customer Segments Examples and Their Benefits

  9 mai 2024, par Erin

  Now that companies can segment buyers, the days of mass marketing are behind us. Customer segmentation offers various benefits for marketing, content creation, sales, analytics teams and more. Without customer segmentation, your personalised marketing efforts may fall flat. 

  According to the Twilio 2023 state of personalisation report, 69% of business leaders have increased their investment in personalisation. There’s a key reason for this — customer retention and loyalty directly benefit from personalisation. In fact, 62% of businesses have cited improved customer retention due to personalisation efforts. The numbers don’t lie. 

  Keep reading to learn how customer segments can help you fine-tune your personalised marketing campaigns. This article will give you a better understanding of customer segmentation and real-world customer segment examples. You’ll leave with the knowledge to empower your marketing strategies with effective customer segmentation. 

  What are customer segments ?

  Customer segments are distinct groups of people or organisations with similar characteristics, needs and behaviours. Like different species of plants in a garden, each customer segment has specific needs and care requirements. Customer segments are useful for tailoring personalised marketing campaigns for specific groups.

  Personalised marketing has been shown to have significant benefits — with 56% of consumers saying that a personalised experience would make them become repeat buyers. 

  Successful marketing teams typically focus on these types of customer segmentation :

  

  1. Geographic segmentation : groups buyers based on their physical location — country, city, region or climate — and language.
  2. Purchase history segmentation : categorises buyers based on their purchasing habits — how often they make purchases — and allows brands to distinguish between frequent, occasional and one-time buyers. 
  3. Product-based segmentation : groups buyers according to the products they prefer or end up purchasing. 
  4. Customer lifecycle segmentation : segments buyers based on where they are in the customer journey. Examples include new, repeat and lapsed buyers. This segmentation category is also useful for understanding the behaviour of loyal buyers and those at risk of churning. 
  5. Technographic segmentation : focuses on buyers’ technology preferences, including device type, browser type, and operating system. 
  6. Channel preference segmentation : helps us understand why buyers prefer to purchase via specific channels — whether online channels, physical stores or a combination of both. 
  7. Value-based segmentation : categorises buyers based on their average purchase value and sensitivity to pricing, for example. This type of segmentation can provide insights into the behaviours of price-conscious buyers and those willing to pay premium prices. 

  Customer segmentation vs. market segmentation

  Customer segmentation and market segmentation are related concepts, but they refer to different aspects of the segmentation process in marketing. 

  Market segmentation is the broader process of dividing the overall market into homogeneous groups. Market segmentation helps marketers identify different groups based on their characteristics or needs. These market segments make it easier for businesses to connect with new buyers by offering relevant products or new features. 

  On the other hand, customer segmentation is used to help you dig deep into the behaviour and preferences of your current customer base. Marketers use customer segmentation insights to create buyer personas. Buyer personas are essential for ensuring your personalised marketing efforts are relevant to the target audience. 

  10 customer segments examples

  Now that you better understand different customer segmentation categories, we’ll provide real-world examples of how customer segmentation can be applied. You’ll be able to draw a direct connection between the segmentation category or categories each example falls under.

  One thing to note is that you’ll want to consider privacy and compliance when you are considering collecting and analysing types of data such as gender, age, income level, profession or personal interests. Instead, you can focus on these privacy-friendly, ethical customer segmentation types :

  1. Geographic location (category : geographic segmentation)

  The North Face is an outdoor apparel and equipment company that relies on geographic segmentation to tailor its products toward buyers in specific regions and climates. 

  For instance, they’ll send targeted advertisements for insulated jackets and snow gear to buyers in colder climates. For folks in seasonal climates, The North Face may send personalised ads for snow gear in winter and ads for hiking or swimming gear in summer. 

  The North Face could also use geographic segmentation to determine buyers’ needs based on location. They can use this information to send targeted ads to specific customer segments during peak ski months to maximise profits.

  2. Preferred language (category : geographic segmentation)

  Your marketing approach will likely differ based on where your customers are and the language they speak. So, with that in mind, language may be another crucial variable you can introduce when identifying your target customers. 

  Language-based segmentation becomes even more important when one of your main business objectives is to expand into new markets and target international customers — especially now that global reach is made possible through digital channels. 

  Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” is a multi-national campaign with personalised cans and bottles featuring popular names from countries around the globe. It’s just one example of targeting customers based on language.

  3. Repeat users and loyal customers (category : customer lifecycle segmentation)

  Sephora, a large beauty supply company, is well-known for its Beauty Insider loyalty program. 

  It segments customers based on their purchase history and preferences and rewards their loyalty with gifts, discounts, exclusive offers and free samples. And since customers receive personalised product recommendations and other perks, it incentivises them to remain members of the Beauty Insider program — adding a boost to customer loyalty.

  By creating a memorable customer experience for this segment of their customer base, staying on top of beauty trends and listening to feedback, Sephora is able to keep buyers coming back.

  

  4. New customers (category : customer lifecycle segmentation)

  Subscription services use customer lifecycle segmentation to offer special promotions and trials for new customers. 

  HBO Max is a great example of a real company that excels at this strategy : 

  They offer 40% savings on an annual ad-free plan, which targets new customers who may be apprehensive about the added monthly cost of a recurring subscription.

  This marketing strategy prioritises fostering long-term customer relationships with new buyers to avoid high churn rates. 

  5. Cart abandonment (category : purchase history segmentation)

  With a rate of 85% among US-based mobile users, cart abandonment is a huge issue for ecommerce businesses. One way to deal with this is to segment inactive customers and cart abandoners — those who showed interest by adding products to their cart but haven’t converted yet — and send targeted emails to remind them about their abandoned carts.

  E-commerce companies like Ipsy, for example, track users who have added items to their cart but haven’t followed through on the purchase. The company’s messaging often contains incentives — like free shipping or a limited-time discount — to encourage passive users to return to their carts. 

  Research has found that cart abandonment emails with a coupon code have a high 44.37% average open rate. 

  6. Website activity (category : technographic segmentation)

  It’s also possible to segment customers based on website activity. Now, keep in mind that this is a relatively broad approach ; it covers every interaction that may occur while the customer is browsing your website. As such, it leaves room for many different types of segmentation. 

  For instance, you can segment your audience based on the pages they visited, the elements they interacted with — like CTAs and forms — how long they stayed on each page and whether they added products to their cart. 

  Matomo’s Event Tracking can provide additional context to each website visit and tell you more about the specific interactions that occur, making it particularly useful for segmenting customers based on how they spend their time on your website. 

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  Amazon segments its customers based on browsing behaviour — recently viewed products and categories, among other things — which, in turn, allows them to improve the customer’s experience and drive sales.

  7. Traffic source (category : channel segmentation) 

  You can also segment your audience based on traffic sources. For example, you can determine if your website visitors arrived through Google and other search engines, email newsletters, social media platforms or referrals. 

  In other words, you’ll create specific audience segments based on the original source. Matomo’s Acquisition feature can provide insights into five different types of traffic sources — search engines, social media, external websites, direct traffic and campaigns — to help you understand how users enter your website.

  You may find that most visitors arrive at your website through social media ads or predominantly discover your brand through search engines. Either way, by learning where they’re coming from, you’ll be able to determine which conversion paths you should prioritise and optimise further. 

  8. Device type (category : technographic segmentation)

  Device type is customer segmentation based on the devices that potential customers may use to access your website and view your content. 

  It’s worth noting that, on a global level, most people (96%) use mobile devices — primarily smartphones — for internet access. So, there’s a high chance that most of your website visitors are coming from mobile devices, too. 

  However, it’s best not to assume anything. Matomo can detect the operating system and the type of device — desktop, mobile device, tablet, console or TV, for example. 

  By introducing the device type variable into your customer segmentation efforts, you’ll be able to determine if there’s a preference for mobile or desktop devices. In return, you’ll have a better idea of how to optimise your website — and whether you should consider developing an app to meet the needs of mobile users.

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  9. Browser type (category : technographic segmentation)

  Besides devices, another type of segmentation that belongs to the technographic category and can provide valuable insights is browser-related. In this case, you’re tracking the internet browser your customers use. 

  Many browser types are available — including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Firefox and Brave — and each may display your website and other content differently. 

  So, keeping track of your customers’ preferred choices is important. Otherwise, you won’t be able to fully understand their online experience — or ensure that these browsers are displaying your content properly. 

  

  10. Ecommerce activity (category : purchase history, value based, channel or product based segmentation) 

  Similar to website activity, looking at ecommerce activity can tell your sales teams more about which pages the customer has seen and how they have interacted with them. 

  With Matomo’s Ecommerce Tracking, you’ll be able to keep an eye on customers’ on-site behaviours, conversion rates, cart abandonment, purchased products and transaction data — including total revenue and average order value.

  Considering that the focus is on sales channels — such as your online store — this approach to customer segmentation can help you improve the sales experience and increase profitability. 

  Start implementing these customer segments examples

  With ever-evolving demographics and rapid technological advancements, customer segmentation is increasingly complex. The tips and real-world examples in this article break down and simplify customer segmentation so that you can adapt to your customer base. 

  Customer segmentation lays the groundwork for your personalised marketing campaigns to take off. By understanding your users better, you can effectively tailor each campaign to different segments. 

  If you’re ready to see how Matomo can elevate your personalised marketing campaigns, try it for free for 21 days. No credit card required.

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