Use segments to bring out what’s most important to you in your Google Ads tables. With segments, you can split your data into rows, and isolate exactly what you want to see. Your segment choices vary depending on which table of your Google Ads account you're viewing, but may include periods of time, click type, or device.
This article explains how to use segments.
Instructions
How to segment your table’s rows
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Use the page menu to navigate to the table you’d like to segment.
- Click the segment icon
and select the data you want to isolate.
- To remove a segment, click the segment icon
Columns may not show a value if you apply an incompatible segment. For example, conversion-based segments like “Conversion action” and “Conversion lag” work only with conversion-related columns like Conversions, All conv., and Conversion value. Hence, other columns like Clicks, Impr., and Cost will show a blank value “--” when a conversion-based segment is applied. This also includes columns that incorporate cost, such as Cost/Conv.
How to use different segment types to gain insights
Some segments can be found on almost every tab in your Google Ads account, while others are only available on particular tabs. In some cases, you may need to download a report to apply a particular segment to your data. Here are the available segment types and how you can use them:
Ad destination
Ad destination describes where the user lands after clicking your ad. If you receive traffic to both your app and mobile website, you can use this segment to compare ad performance based on where users landed.
Use the following steps to ensure the most accurate segmentation across web and app traffic in this report:
- Set up app conversion tracking through Firebase SDK or third-party SDK.
- Send all connector pings (session starts Google Click ID) to Google Ads.
- Link the GA4F or third-party account to Google Ads customer ID.
Brand lift type
Brand Lift measurement is not available for all Google Ads accounts. To use Brand Lift, contact your Google account representative. If you don't have a Google account representative, you won't be able to use Brand Lift.
Use this segment to see the metrics associated with the survey question types you've selected for your study: "Ad recall", "Awareness", "Consideration", "Favorability", and "Purchase Intent".
If the selected date range spans multiple flights or studies, the campaign level view will display the aggregated stats.
For more info, review Understand Your Brand Lift Measurement Data.
Click type
Use this segment to see clicks on which elements of the ads resulted in visits to your website. Values include:
- Headline,
- Website,
- Mobile Clicks-to-Call
- Sitelink
- Price asset
- Promotion asset
- Lead form
- Image asset
- Cards
- End cap
- Driving Directions
- Get location details
- Show nearby locations
- Product feed
- App engagement ad deep link
- App install and deep link
- Mobile app asset
- Shopping - Product - Online
- Shopping - Product - Local
- Shopping - Product - Coupon
Segmenting by click type may not be compatible with all metrics, such as view metrics for video campaigns.
Note
Click type may apply to multiple aspects of the same impression (for example, a click-to-call impression may show alongside a headline impression in the same ad). In this situation, you'll see "--" instead of summary totals in your downloaded report. A sum total would be inaccurate because it would double-count some of the impressions.
Conversions
- Conversion action: The name of the conversion tracking action you setup
- Conversion category: The category of conversion, based on your conversion action setup (for example: Purchases, Submit Lead Forms, Sign-ups, Contacts, Request Quotes, Downloads, Get Directions, Engagement, Page view, etc)
- Conversion source: This is where the conversion measurement originated (for example: Website tag, Google Analytics, Store Visits, Mobile App (Firebase), Mobile App (Third-party app analytics), Google Hosted, etc)
- Ad Event Type: It is the action that precedes a conversion (for example: Engaged-View, Clicks, Interaction, Impression)
- Days to Conversion: The time difference between the customer's ad impression and the subsequent conversion. Use “Days to conversion” to understand how long you should wait for a given reporting day before you interpret your conversion numbers. By observing how long users might have taken historically to convert, you can also get a better idea about when to start a new ad campaign
- Conversion Adjustment
- Days to Conversion or Adjustment
- New vs Returning Customers
- Value rule adjustment
Device
Format
Use this segment to analyze different video ad formats and optimize your strategy accordingly. Applying this segment allows you to understand performance at a more granular level. This includes segmenting for:
- Skippable in-stream
- In-feed
- Shorts
You can also segment performance at different levels:
- Campaign
- Ad group
- Ad
- Ad level asset
Network (with search partners)
Time
Use this to split your statistics table into rows based on the period of time you select. If you're requesting a substantial amount of data, you may get a message instructing you to download a report.
Options include:
- Day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...)
- Day (Wed., December 21, 2011 for example)
- Week
- Month
- Quarter
- Year
- Hour of day
Note that you can only segment by "Day" when your date ranges 16 days or less.
Tip
You can also use the "Dimensions" tab to view performance by periods of time.
Top vs. Other
Apply the "Top vs. Other" segment to your statistics tables to find out where your ad appeared on Google's search results pages and search partners' pages. Segmenting your data by "Top vs. Other" can help you optimize your search campaigns to serve your ads on the parts of the page that perform best for you.
How to interpret the data
- Google search: Top— Your ad showed among top ads.
- Google search: Other— Any Google Ads text ads that appear in placements other than the Google search: Top
- Search partners— As of October 2020 Search partners no longer distinguish between Top vs. Other, and all Search partner data will be labeled in one segment. You may still see "Search partners: Top," which includes data from before October 2020.
- Google Display Network— Your ad ran on the Google Display Network.
