Skip to Content
🚧 Betterlytics Docs is being worked on 🚧
Dashboard FeaturesFiltering

Filtering

Betterlytics allows you to easily segment your audience to analyze and understand different trends. A segment is made up of one or more filters that help you focus on what matters most to your business.

What is filtering?

Filtering in Betterlytics lets you slice and dice your analytics data to focus on specific visitor segments. Want to see how mobile users from Germany interact with your blog? Or analyze the performance of your latest marketing campaign? Filters make this possible.

Key benefits:

  • Focus on what matters - Remove noise and analyze specific user segments
  • Uncover hidden insights - Discover patterns in specific visitor groups
  • Optimize your strategy - Make data-driven decisions based on targeted analysis
  • Track campaign performance - Measure the success of specific marketing efforts

How filtering works

Universal application across all pages

Filters are applied consistently across all dashboard pages and affect all data displayed on that page. When you apply filters, you’re essentially asking “Show me data for visitors who match these specific criteria.”

Filters affect:

  • Overview metrics - Visitor counts, page views, session duration
  • Traffic sources - Referrer analysis and campaign tracking
  • Page analytics - Top pages, entry/exit pages, page performance
  • Device insights - Browser, OS, and device type breakdowns
  • Geographic data - Country and location distributions
  • Custom events - Event tracking and conversion analysis
  • Time-series charts - All trend analysis and historical data

Consistent interface everywhere

Every dashboard page includes the same filtering interface in the top-right corner of the page:

  • Filter button in the top-right corner
  • Active filters displayed as badges below the filter button
  • Same filter options available across all dashboard pages

Filter button location and active filter badges

Adding your first filter

  1. Click the “Filters” button on any dashboard page
  2. Select “Add your first filter” in the dropdown
  3. Choose your filter criteria:
    • Select the column (e.g., Country, Device, URL)
    • Choose the operator (is/is not)
    • Enter the value to filter for
  4. Click “Apply” to activate the filter

Step-by-step filter creation process

Available filter types

Page & Navigation Filters

  • URL - Filter by specific page URLs or URL patterns
    • Example: /blog/* for all blog pages
    • Example: /product/*/checkout for checkout pages

Device & Technology Filters

  • Device type - Desktop, mobile, tablet
  • Browser - Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.
  • Operating system - Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, etc.

Geographic Filters

  • Country - Filter by visitor’s country using country codes
    • Example: US for United States
    • Example: DE for Germany

Traffic Source Filters

  • Referrer source - Direct, search, social media, etc.
  • Referrer name - Specific source names like “Google”, “Facebook”
  • Referrer term - Search keywords that brought users to your site
  • Referrer URL - Complete referrer URLs

Campaign Tracking Filters

  • UTM source - UTM source parameter values
  • UTM medium - UTM medium parameter values
  • UTM campaign - UTM campaign parameter values
  • UTM term - UTM term parameter values
  • UTM content - UTM content parameter values

Custom Event Filters

  • Event - Specific custom event names you’ve set up

Filter dropdown showing all available filter types

Filter operators and matching

Basic operators

  • is - Exact match (case-insensitive)
  • is not - Exclude exact match (case-insensitive)

Powerful wildcard matching

Use the asterisk (*) character for flexible pattern matching:

Pattern types:

  • *example - Matches anything ending with “example”
  • example* - Matches anything starting with “example”
  • *example* - Matches anything containing “example”

Real-world examples:

  • URL is /blog/* - All blog pages and subpages
  • Browser is *Chrome* - All Chrome variants (Chrome, Chrome Mobile, etc.)
  • UTM source is *google* - All Google traffic sources (google, google-ads, google-organic)
  • Event is *click* - All click-related events (button-click, link-click, etc.)

Working with multiple filters

Combining filters with AND logic

All filters in Betterlytics use AND logic - visitors must match ALL applied filters to be included in the results.

Example combination:

  • Device type is mobile
  • Country is US
  • URL is /product/*

This shows only mobile users from the US who visited product pages.

Managing multiple filters

  • Add more filters - Click “Add filter” to combine multiple criteria
  • Remove specific filters - Click the Trash icon on the filter input row or the X on any filter badge
  • Edit existing filters - Click the filter button to modify criteria
  • Cancel Changes - Click the Cancel button to remove all changes you made to filters since the last Apply
  • Apply Changes - Click the Apply button to save your changes

Filter management interface with multiple filters

Best practices and workflows

Effective filtering strategies

  1. Start broad, then narrow down

    • Begin with one filter (e.g., Country is US)
    • Add more specific criteria (Device type is mobile)
    • Refine further as needed (URL is /product/*)

  2. Use filters to answer specific questions

    • “How do mobile users behave differently?”
    • “Which countries have the highest conversion rates?”
    • “What’s the performance of our latest campaign?”

  3. Combine time ranges with filters

    • Apply filters first, then adjust time ranges
    • Compare filtered segments across different periods
    • Look for seasonal patterns in specific segments

Filter pattern examples:

  • Geographic analysis: Country is DE + Device type is mobile
  • Content performance: URL is /blog/* + Referrer source is social
  • Campaign optimization: UTM campaign is holiday-sale + Device type is not desktop

Troubleshooting common issues

No data showing after applying filters

Check your filter values:

  • Ensure values match your actual data exactly
  • Try using wildcards (*) if unsure of exact values
  • Verify country codes (use US not United States)

Verify your time range:

  • Ensure your selected time range contains data for the filtered criteria
  • Some filters might not have data in shorter time periods

Test filters individually:

  • Remove filters one by one to identify the problematic filter
  • Start with a single filter and add others gradually

Unexpected or confusing results

Remember AND logic:

  • All filters must match - there’s no OR operation
  • Country is US AND Country is DE will show no results
  • Use separate filtered views for OR-like analysis

Case-insensitive matching:

  • All text matching is case-insensitive
  • chrome matches Chrome and CHROME

Verify wildcard placement:

  • *mobile* is different from mobile*
  • Ensure asterisks are placed correctly in your patterns

Getting help

Common questions

Q: Can I save my filter combinations? A: Yes, you can bookmark filtered dashboard URLs or share them with your team.

Q: Why don’t my filter numbers add up? A: Visitors can view multiple pages and trigger multiple events, so individual filter totals may exceed overall visitor counts.

Q: Can I filter by date ranges? A: Use the time range selector for date filtering - query filters focus on visitor and behavior attributes.

Effective filtering is key to unlocking insights in your analytics. Start with simple filters and gradually build more complex segments as you become comfortable with the system.

If you have any questions, please contact us at support@betterlytics.com or join our Discord community .

Metrics GlossaryPricing Overview