# This guide will help you understand

• What is time-based session_start analytics

• Why you should use it and what insights you can gain

• How to create this analysis step-by-step using Bloomreach Engagement

  • Creating the segmentation

  • Creating a report with a daily overview

• Troubleshooting

# What is time-based session_start analytics

These analytics are in essence an advancement on the industry standard “new versus returning” way of viewing your session_starts. This advanced way of viewing your sessions will effectively break down the "returning" into more detailed segments. Understanding how to perform this will allow you to (1) understand retention patterns among your customers, (2) build audiences based on this for UX, Retargeting or Email and (3) monitor the overall health of your e-commerce enterprise.

Time-based session_start analytics drill down the event `session_start` by the numerical answer to - “how long ago, in days, has the previous session_start occurred”. Session_start is an event that is tracked by Bloomreach Engagement to the customer when a device connects to a website with Engagement's tracking. In this analysis, we break down the time of “how long ago” into “# of days since the `last sesion_start`”.

# Why you should use this analysis

The primary value of doing this analysis is that is a more in-depth version of new v returning session_starts. Additionally, it allows you to better understand your retention and acquisition of customer behavior. Lastly, these insights can be directly tied-in to action - an Email, UX intervention or pushing enriched information into a retargeting audience.

## How your analysis will look like

We will show you how to create a basic segmentation and also a traffic report with a view per day.

**The basic segmentation:**

# How to create the analysis using Bloomreach Engagement

## Creating the segmentation

We will need to create an [Expression](🔗) to calculate the time between session_starts, which we will then be used the [Event segmentation](🔗) itself.

### 1. Create the expression

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Good job!

Your expression is now complete. Click save.

### 2. Create the event segmentation _session_starts by(# of days since last session_start)_

Create a new [event segmentation](🔗) in the data manager. You will need to create 7 segments, each for the group you want to look at, as shown in this screenshot. The GIF below shows how to create the first 3 of those segments.

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Tip

You can speed up your work by copying each segment and then editing its properties (instead of creating a new segment each time) as shown in the GIF above.

👍

Good job!

You have now created the event segmentation and can use it in your dashboards. Don't forget to click save.

# Creating a report with a daily overview

Now you can create a [report](🔗) based on the segmentation which will show you what groups of customers are coming to your website, unique per day (based on the last session_start). This can then be saved in Dashboards.

The whole setup of the report is highlighted in the screenshot and the table below:

# Troubleshooting FAQ

See our [troubleshooting guide](🔗) to find answers to the following question and more:

• I don't see the expression/segmentation/aggregate I created in the list of events/attributes