Sequence segments

A sequence is a user-segment condition that requires events in a particular order. In the segment builder choose Add sequence (available for user segments). Each step is a condition group like any other; between steps you choose is indirectly followed by (anything may happen in between) or is directly followed by (the very next event must match). Up to ten steps.

Options on the sequence:

• Sequence scoping: Across all sessions (steps may span visits) or Within the same session.
• Time constraint: the whole sequence must complete within N minutes, hours or days.
• Step 1 must be the first event: the first step has to be the user's first event in the date range, for "first thing they did" questions.

Examples of questions only sequences answer:

• Users who viewed a product then searched (they did not find what they wanted on the page).
• Users who started checkout and, within 30 minutes, viewed the shipping-policy page before purchasing.
• Users whose first event was a page_view of a blog post and who later signed up.

Sequences in segments complement funnels. A funnel shows counts per step for everyone; a sequence segment captures the people who completed (or failed) a path so you can look at anything else about them: their channels, their other pages, their lifetime value, their user explorer timelines. Combine both: build the funnel, then right-click a step to spawn a sequence segment of the users who reached it.

An Exclude block can also hold a sequence, which is how you express "users who added to cart but never purchased" cleanly: include add_to_cart, exclude a sequence or condition purchase. Exclusion can be temporarily (only events after the match are excluded) or permanently (the whole user is excluded).

Sequences are evaluated at query time over raw events, so they obey the retention window and can trigger sampling on big properties.