Sequential segments are the bedrock of insightful analysis in both Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) and Adobe Analytics. While seemingly straightforward, crafting accurate sequential segments can be surprisingly tricky, and mistakes in their definition can significantly skew your entire analysis.
In this article, I’ll share some techniques to help you master this powerful tool. But first, let’s dive into some background.
Sequential Segments vs Traditional Segments
Traditional segments are like snapshots of your audience at a specific point in time. They focus on static attributes or single-event occurrences and help answer questions like, "How many users visited the site yesterday?" or “What is the product mix of orders that we received last month?”
Sequential segments, on the other hand, are like a movie reel, showing the sequence of events or the user journey that led to a particular outcome and revealing patterns and insights that would otherwise remain hidden. They answer questions like, "What series of actions led users to abandon their shopping cart?"
The key difference between the two is that sequential segments incorporate the elements of time and order.
Why are Sequential Segments Critical to Success in Adobe CJA?
Imagine trying to understand customer churn without considering the behavior leading up to cancellation. Or imagine attempting to optimize your onboarding process without analyzing user engagement in the first couple of weeks. Sequential segments help analysts provide the context needed to move beyond simple metrics and truly understand the customer journey to answer complex questions about customer behavior, such as:
- How do users interact with our website before making a purchase?
- What are the common paths users take after abandoning their cart?
- What marketing campaigns are most effective at driving repeat purchases within a specific timeframe?
- What was the customer activity seven days before they contacted support?
By defining the specific sequence of events you're interested in, you gain a granular understanding of user behavior. Eventually, achieving mastery over sequential segments in CJA will help your business identify key conversion paths, uncover friction points, personalize experiences, optimize marketing campaigns, and improve customer lifetime value.
Tips for Highly Effective Sequential Segments
Now, let's explore some techniques to elevate your sequential segment game.
Leverage "Then" operators
The "Then" operator is the cornerstone of sequential segmentation. It allows you to define the order of events.
Example: "User visits Product Page, Then 'Adds Product to Cart'" allows you to isolate users who specifically followed that path and indicated high purchase intent.
Utilize "Within" clauses
The "Within" clause adds a time constraint to your sequence. This can help with analyzing the effectiveness of limited-time promotions. It allows you to track users who viewed the offer and then made a purchase within the promotion period.
Example: "User visits Product Page, Then 'Adds Product to Cart' Within 30 Minutes" ensures the add-to-cart event occurred within 30 minutes of the product page visit.
Combine sequential segments with other segment types
Don't limit yourself to just sequential segments. Combine them with other segment types, such as demographic or behavioral segments, to create highly targeted analyses.
Example: To understand specific drop-off points, analyze the sequential behavior of "High-Value Customers" (defined by lifetime value and other criteria in a separate logic) who abandoned their cart.
Use lookahead / lookback windows
Control the timeframe for your "Before" and "After" checks to prevent capturing irrelevant events. For instance, “Only Before Sequence” checks if a specific event happened before a defined sequence of events, while “Only After Sequence” checks if a specific event happened after a defined sequence of events.
Example: "Show me users who made a purchase Only After viewing the 'Product Page B' -> 'Add to Cart' sequence Within 30 Days." This focuses on recent purchase behavior related to that specific product. Without a lookback window, you might capture purchases made months later and skew your data.
Set strict time conditions
When analyzing user behavior for a specific timeframe, it’s important to exclude any activity that occurs after the defined window. This technique is especially crucial for lifecycle analysis, onboarding journeys, or promotional periods where precise time-bound segmentation is needed.
Example: You want to look at all activity that happened in the first 30 days after an activation. This approach helps you determine if support calls are occurring during the onboarding period, allowing you to assess user issues and engagement within the critical early stages of their journey.
How to implement
- Define the activation event: Start by specifying the event that triggers the segment (e.g., account activation, product registration). This will serve as the starting point for your time-bound analysis.
- Track activity after the activation event: Use an “Only After Sequence” to capture the actions occurring after the activation. You can track all user activity or specify certain behaviors (e.g., logins, purchases, etc.).
- Track activity 30 days after the activation event: Use an “Only After Sequence” to capture the actions occurring 30 days after the activation. You can track all user activity or specify certain behaviors (e.g., logins, purchases, etc.).
- Combine above conditions to exclude activity beyond 30 days: To ensure your analysis is limited to the defined period, apply an exclusion rule to the second filter to exclude any actions after day 30. This prevents activities on day 31 and beyond from being included in your segment.
By following this approach, you can accurately capture user behavior within a specific timeframe and avoid the influence of out-of-scope actions beyond the 30-day window.
Add complexity to lookahead/lookback segments by adding negative conditions
One way to use an "Only Before Sequence" in CJA involves understanding and effectively utilizing "negative lookahead" combined with other conditions. Instead of focusing on what users did before a sequence, we focus on what they didn't do. This helps identify users who might be slipping through the cracks or missing key touchpoints.
Example: You want to identify users who didn't view a specific promotional banner before completing a purchase sequence. This helps you measure the effectiveness of that banner and potentially identify users who are converting without its influence.
How to implement
- Define the "negative" event: Create a segment or filter that identifies users who didn’t view the promotional banner. This is your "negative" event. You might achieve this by excluding users who did view the banner and using a "does not exist" condition on the banner view event.
- Define the purchase sequence: Create your purchase sequence (e.g., "Add to Cart" -> "Begin Checkout" -> "Purchase").
- Apply the "Only Before Sequence" condition: Apply the "Only Before Sequence" condition to your "negative" event (the segment of users who didn't view the banner) and set the sequence to your purchase sequence.
- Combine with other conditions (optional but recommended): Combine this with other relevant filters or segments. For example, you might want to analyze this behavior only for first-time purchasers or users from a specific geographic region.
The results will show users who completed the purchase sequence and those who didn’t view the promotional banner before starting that sequence. This isolates the group that converted without being exposed to the banner.
Advanced considerations
- Lookback windows: Use lookback windows to define the timeframe for both the "negative" event and the sequence. This is crucial for relevance. For example, you might only care about users who didn’t view the banner in the 30 days before the purchase sequence.
- Calculated metrics: Create calculated metrics to quantify the impact. For example, calculate the conversion rate of users who didn’t view the banner and compare it to the conversion rate of users who did view the banner. This will give you a direct measure of the banner's effectiveness.
- A/B testing parallel: This technique can be used to analyze the results of A/B tests. One group sees the banner, and the other doesn't. Use the "negative lookahead" approach to analyze the didn’t-see-the-banner group.
From Insights to Impact: Your Path Forward
Mastering sequential segments in Adobe CJA and Analytics can sometimes be overwhelming, but it's crucial for unlocking valuable insights into customer behavior.
I hope that these tips and tricks help you create accurate and powerful segments that drive informed decision-making. Remember to always test and document your segments to ensure they're meeting your specific analysis needs. And most importantly, enjoy your analysis!
