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Analyzing Sessions with Multiple Events in Google Analytics 4
Hey there! I’ve got a client who’s tracking a few special events on his website, like when users hit specific pages. I can see these events popping up perfectly fine in the Reports > Engagement > Events section, so that’s all good.
Now, they want to develop a kind of report or ‘Exploration’ that pinpoints when two specific events pop up in the same browsing session. But here’s the weird part: when I create an Exploration with a custom segment to include ‘event_one AND event_two’, it always comes up empty. This happens even though I can clearly see these events in the Reports > Engagement > Events section.
So here’s my question, is there another way to compare two events within the same session? What they’re essentially doing is tracking when a user visits a specific page (event one) and then completes a form, landing them on a thank you page (event two). They want a way to see the sessions or users where both of these actions took place. Got any ideas?
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2 Replies
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It sounds like you might be having issues with how sequences are interpreted in your Analytics platform. Your current segment might be looking for sessions where event_one and event_two happen at the same exact time, rather than sequentially during the same session. The solution to your problem lies in using ‘Sequences’ within your segments. This allows you to specify that a user does X, then does Y, all in one session. Instead of using ‘AND’, create a sequence segment wherein first ‘event_one’ should happen, followed by ‘event_two’. This type of segment would provide information on sessions where event_one occurs before event_two, within the same session, which seems to be what you’re after.
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Certainly, it seems like your client is looking for sequential event tracking, which can indeed be done with some specific configurations in analytics tools like Google Analytics.
Since you’re already seeing individual events tracked correctly, the potential issue might be how you’re defining ‘AND’ in your segmenting conditions. Rather than capturing sessions where both events occur, the current approach may be looking for sessions where both events occur simultaneously, which is probably why you’re not getting any results.
Instead, I suggest setting up a funnel, which typically provides a visualization of a user’s journey across multiple steps or pages. In your case, the first step of the funnel would be event one (visiting the specific page), and the second step would be event two (landing on the thank you page after completing the form).
Another option would be to utilize more advanced features of Google Analytics such as User Explorer where you can view individual user interactions. You can filter down and manually look at the events that each user has triggered during their sessions. Remember though, this can be more time-consuming and is not easily scalable if you have a large number of users.
In some cases, you might need to use a more sophisticated analytics system or customer data platform that allows for complex event and user behaviour tracking. A solution like this would allow you to easily track occurrences of event one followed by event two in the same session.
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