This article helps you:
Streamline the segmentation process by understanding the difference between computations and cohorts
Create and deploy a computed property from an existing event or event property
Sync your computed properties to an external destination
Like cohorts, computations are a segmentation tool. But where cohorts create lists of users, computations work by:
Here’s an example. If you want to segment your users by the number of purchases they’ve made, you can use cohorts to do this—however, you’d have to create a different cohort to correspond to each possible number of purchases, an approach that could quickly become cumbersome and time-consuming.
As an alternative, you could create a computed property (number of orders, say), which will store the relevant number as a single integer, attached to each individual user. And while either a cohort or a computation would get the job done, in this use case, a computed property would be the more elegant and flexible choice.
To use your computed property as a filter in a chart, first choose your computed property as a filter parameter in a cohort; then save the cohort. From there, you can select that cohort in any Amplitude chart as a segmentation parameter. You can also query directly on a computed property in a chart, as either a property filter or a group-by option.
Grouping by computations is only available on Event Segmentation, Funnel Analysis, Retention Analysis, and composition charts.
Computed properties are ideal tools for personalization campaigns. There are three types of computed properties:
Computations are available for standard event properties only. They are not available for merged, derived, or transformed properties.
To create a new computed property, follow these steps:
The event property value must be expressed as an integer for the aggregation to work.
Amplitude Cohorts & Audiences will apply the computation to all users who were active during your specified date range. In the details view, you can see the configuration details of the computation, as well as a distribution of all users, the number of users who’ve fired the event at different counts (event count only), and a distribution of all users by distinct binned aggregation values (aggregation only).
You can delete a computation at any time after you've created it. To do so, follow these steps:
When you delete a computation, it will no longer show up as an available user property for your cohorts. You will be unable to sync it or filter from it within your cohorts. At the same time, deleting unneeded computations will free up space for you to create new, more useful ones.
Computed properties are most often used in personalization campaigns. Just sync the computed property as a user property to external destinations, like a database or third-party marketing platform.
For example, you can use a computed property to calculate the total number of orders a user has placed, and then use that information to trigger a different canvas in Braze if that number reaches a certain amount. You could also use computed properties to calculate users’ average order values, sync to the Profile API, and then show users different interstitials in the app, based on their average order values.
Amplitude Audiences supports Braze, S3, and the Profile API as destinations for computed property syncs. Note that the process of syncing to Braze will accrue more data points in your Braze plan, which may result in an additional charge from Braze.
To sync your computed property with a personalization tool, follow the instructions in our article on syncing properties, recommendations, and cohorts to third-party destinations.
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May 7th, 2024
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