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With an advanced segment applied, goal and Ecommerce conversion rates are more meaningful (and higher).
If you only expect one type of visitor to your site – such as a visitor who has or has not logged in, a visitor from a specific geographical area, or a visitor who has accessed a certain page – to complete a certain goal or an Ecommerce transaction, you should apply an advanced segment to your goal reports for more meaningful (and higher) conversion rates.
For example, let’s say that your website consists of two main sections: news and content on the one hand, and an online store on the other. If you don’t necessarily expect visitors on the news side to complete transactions in the store, you should create an advanced segment based on visitors who have viewed at least one page in the store and apply that segment to your goal and Ecommerce reports.
As is illustrated in the screen shot, the conversion rate for the segment will be higher (and more meaningful) than for all traffic, and variations in conversion rate over time will have greater amplitude and therefore be easier to detect.
This illustrates a general principle in Web analytics: the more specificity you apply to your analytics in terms visitor segmentation, the more you’ll be able to make meaningful observations and take concrete action to improve your website.
