How to use segments in Google Analytics API

Question

In Google Analytics, we are able to create segments like below:

From the Google Analytics API explorer, we can pull the segment information be it by segment id or by its code:

I would assume we can just cut and paste that code into the google analytics core reporting v3 reference code like we do with all the other parameters:

When I run the code however, I get this error:

Arg, there was an API error : 400 : Invalid value 'users::condition::dateOfSession==2015-04-30;ga:sessionCount==1;condition::ga:campaign=@33100;sessions::condition::ga:userType=@Returning Visitor' 
for segment parameter.

I am not sure what could be wrong. When I use the segment id instead in my code for the segment parameter(segment ='gaid::xxxxxxx'), i get this error:

Arg, there was an API error : 400 : Segment XXXXXXXXXXX is not supported in the API.

Not sure how I should structure the code.

Answer 1

I found the solution after tweaking with the segment code and reading more about segments in the segments dev guide.

I was having issues with the dateOfsession parameter where i should have used '<>' instead of '=' for the date. So this is what i should have done: dateOfsession<>2015-04-30_2015-04-30 Somehow using '==' doesn't work.

The dateOfsession is a new parameter in the GA API and hence have little examples and documentation about it.

Answer 2

Everything you send to the segment, actually anything you send to any of the parameter to the reporting API must be URL encoded.

users::condition::dateOfSession==2015-04-30;ga:sessionCount==1;condition::ga:campaign=@33100;sessions::condition::ga:userType=@Returning Visitor

becomes

users%3A%3Acondition%3A%3AdateOfSession%3D%3D2015-04-30%3Bga%3AsessionCount%3D%3D1%3Bcondition%3A%3Aga%3Acampaign%3D%4033100%3Bsessions%3A%3Acondition%3A%3Aga%3AuserType%3D%40Returning+Visitor

That should work. the only thing I am not sure about is if the ; needs to be encode or not. You may need to test that. I know the == does. If it doesn't work let me know and I will add a few segments and do some testing myself.