Segment, measured on 104 sites
Segment is a customer data platform. A site loads one Segment script, sends its page views and events to that one place, and Segment forwards them on to whichever destinations the site has switched on: product analytics, advertising, email, support tooling. That is why the name turns up in a network trace. It is the single collector standing in front of a list of services that never appear in the page source. It was found on 104 of the 5,294 sites in this index, and the median site running it contacts 9 separate companies over a page load.
Nine companies on the median site, third of thirteen
Nine companies places Segment third of the thirteen technology products profiled here on median company count. Median requests is 50, fourth of thirteen, and median tracker-classified companies is 2, also fourth. So sites running Segment sit on the busy side of this index's technology groups without being at the top of any of the three volume measures. The twelve examples cover a wide span: digitaloceanspaces.com contacted 3 companies, newrelic.com, mailchimp.com and mailchi.mp 5 each, digitalocean.com 6, zendesk.com 8, launchdarkly.com 9, segment.io 12, fidelity.com 13, dell.com 15, rakuten.com 16 and datadoghq.com 24.
Six of them before the banner could be answered
The median Segment site records 6 companies contacted before the banner could be answered, which ranks second of the thirteen technology groups here, level with Alpine.js and Hotjar. At least one company arrived in that window on 95 of the 104 sites, a share of 91.3% that ranks eighth of thirteen, while the median count after the window closes is 1.
The same tool, two very different sequences
The most useful thing in this group's data is how little the presence of Segment predicts about sequencing. datadoghq.com contacted 24 companies with 22 of them in the early window and made its first outside request at 535 ms, with no recognised banner. mailchimp.com contacted 5 with 1 early, first contact at 1,875 ms, behind OneTrust; mailchi.mp shows the same shape at 5 and 1, first contact 1,933 ms. fidelity.com contacted 13 with 2 early at 1,447 ms, zendesk.com 8 with 3, dell.com 15 with 4. At the other end launchdarkly.com recorded 9 of 9 early behind Cookiebot, digitalocean.com 6 of 6, newrelic.com 5 of 5 behind Osano and digitaloceanspaces.com 3 of 3. Two sites can run the same collector and produce opposite traces.
Banners on 61 of the 104
A recognised consent tool was present on 61 of the 104 sites, leaving 43 with none the crawl could identify. OneTrust was seen on 32 of them, IAB TCF conformant tools on 12, Cookiebot on 5, Osano on 5, CookieYes on 3 and Usercentrics on 2. These are counts of sites where each product was seen alongside the rest of the group, not slices of the 61. Median first contact across the whole group is 727 ms, fourth of the thirteen technology products here, and the fastest single first contact recorded was 126 ms.
A developer and B2B population
The example sites lean hard towards software companies selling to other companies: datadoghq.com, launchdarkly.com, newrelic.com, digitalocean.com, digitaloceanspaces.com, zendesk.com and segment.io itself, alongside dell.com, mailchimp.com, mailchi.mp, rakuten.com and fidelity.com. Their global ranks run from 320 to 973, a tight band in the upper-middle of the crawl. Segment sits tenth of thirteen by site count in this index, so it is a specific choice made by a particular kind of company rather than a default that arrives with a template. If you want these fields for a site you run, MurmStack measures a URL you choose and reports the same ones.
| Site | Companies | Before consent | First contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| datadoghq.com | 24 | 22 | 535 ms |
| launchdarkly.com | 9 | 9 | 249 ms |
| zendesk.com | 8 | 3 | 1308 ms |
| dell.com | 15 | 4 | 1352 ms |
| newrelic.com | 5 | 5 | 238 ms |
| digitalocean.com | 6 | 6 | 868 ms |
| mailchimp.com | 5 | 1 | 1875 ms |
| rakuten.com | 16 | 5 | 1242 ms |
| fidelity.com | 13 | 2 | 1447 ms |
| mailchi.mp | 5 | 1 | 1933 ms |
| digitaloceanspaces.com | 3 | 3 | 493 ms |
| segment.io | 12 | 5 | 1668 ms |
| Tool | Sites |
|---|---|
| OneTrust | 32 |
| IAB TCF consent tool | 12 |
| Cookiebot | 5 |
| Osano | 5 |
| CookieYes | 3 |
| Usercentrics | 2 |
The six most common are listed. The remaining 2 of 61 sites with a banner carry something outside that six. One tool is recorded per site, so these counts never overlap.
Questions
What does Segment actually do?
It collects events from a site once and fans them out to other services. Instead of installing a separate script for each analytics, advertising or support tool, a site installs Segment and configures destinations on Segment's side. It was found on 104 of the 5,294 sites measured here.
Does Segment reduce the number of companies a page contacts?
Not on this evidence. Sites running it contact a median of 9 companies, third of the thirteen technology products profiled here, and 50 requests on the median page. This index records what the browser contacted, so anything forwarded server-side would not appear in these counts either way.
How much happens before the banner on a Segment site?
A median of 6 companies were contacted before the banner could be answered, second of thirteen on that measure and level with two others, and at least one arrived early on 95 of the 104 sites. Once the window has closed the median site adds one more.
Which consent tools appear on sites running Segment?
OneTrust on 32 sites, IAB TCF conformant tools on 12, Cookiebot on 5, Osano on 5, CookieYes on 3 and Usercentrics on 2, seen alongside each other across the 61 sites where a banner was recognised at all.
Which measured site was the busiest?
datadoghq.com, with 24 companies contacted over the page load and 22 of them counted before the banner could be answered, at a first contact of 535 ms. No consent tool was recognised on it.