Who can use this feature?
- Available with Enterprise, Advanced, Business, and Free plans.
- Available for admins, architects, explorers, and standard users.
Within metrics, funnels, and journeys, there is a segment scoping option that allows you to choose how the segment data will be counted in your analysis.
Locating the Advanced options menu
For metrics and funnels, locate and click the Advanced options menu indicated by the horizontal ellipsis icon next to the segment drop-down selector to adjust the segment scoping option.
Journeys will have the option under the “Segment” label.
Understanding Advanced options
When you open the Advanced options menu, it will look like the image below, with the text matching whether you a viewing a metric, funnel, or journey.
If you select the option to count events performed By the matching users, data will be counted for all users from the Segment whenever they meet the defined (metrics, funnels, or journeys) criteria in any session within the specified time range.
If you select the option to count events performed Within the matching sessions, data will be counted only when users meet the Segment and defined (metrics, funnels, or journeys) criteria within the same session.
Segment scoping examples
Let's say your company wants to promote a blog post to drive traffic to your site and encourage users to complete a task. You want to measure the impact of this blog post.
User scoping example
One way you could measure the success of the blog post is to count the number of users that view the blog and, at some point, also complete the task, whether in the same session or not. You could accomplish this in Fullstory by creating a segment of users that have visited the blog post and then creating a Metric counting the number of unique users that completed the task. Since you want to know the number of users that viewed the post and at some point also completed the task, you would select the By the matching users option from the Segment Scoping Options.
Session scoping example
Another way you could measure the success of this blog post is to count the number of users that view the blog post and also complete the task in the same session. You could accomplish this in Fullstory by creating a segment of users that have visited the blog post and then creating a Metric counting the number of unique users that completed the task. Since you want to know the number of users that viewed the post and completed the task in the same session, you would select the Within the matching sessions option from the Segment Scoping Options.
Another example could be if you were interested in understanding Mobile users on your site.
When using the Mobile segment, if you select the By the matching users option, this will target events from user sessions where the user was ever on mobile during the segment time range. So if they had one mobile session and one desktop session in the past 30 days, events from both sessions would be considered for the Metric calculation.
On the other hand, if you select Within the matching Sessions, this will target events from sessions where the user was on mobile. So if they had one mobile session and one desktop session in the past 30 days, only events from the mobile session would be considered for the Metric calculation.
Time period
It is important to understand that a Segment and the analysis to which it is applied, whether in Metrics, Funnels, or Journeys, each provide the option to define a Time Period. If the Segment definition has a different time frame than the one defined in your analysis, this will impact your results.
The below spells out the behavior within Metrics but applies to Funnels and Journeys as well.
If you're using the By the matching users option, the results will be limited to the Metric's time period, but the users counted in the calculation only include those who matched within the Segment's time range.
If you're using the Within the matching sessions option, the results will be limited to sessions that meet both the Metric and Segment criteria. If you’re not setting a custom or “since” time period in your Segment, your Segment’s time range will be automatically updated to match the Metric’s time range.
As a note, if your Metric is using a Segment that has a custom or “since” time period, Fullstory will honor the Segment’s time range and automatically scope your Metric to count events performed By the matching users for you without you having to make any adjustments.