In this article, we’ll explain:
- Reading your Crosstab
- Adding data and audiences to your Crosstab
- Filtering your Crosstab and adding a new base
- Merging and saving rows and columns as audiences in your Crosstab
- Viewing and sorting your Crosstab
- Saving, sharing and exporting your Crosstab
- Calculating averages in Crosstabs
- How to trend data
- Creating & Understanding Audience Overlap in Crosstabs
Reading your Crosstab
- Universe - an estimate of the real world population that match both the row and column
- Responses - the number of actual people on the panel that match both the row and column
- % Column - the proportion of the column who also match the row
- % Row - the proportion of the row who also match the column
- Index - the relative affinity of the row and column combination compared to the base
To view the expression of a row or column, click the ellipses and select ‘View/rename’. Now, you can see a visual representation of the expression, and also rename the row/column header.
Adding Data and Audiences to your Crosstab
To start applying data to your Crosstab, you’ll need to click on ‘Add an Attribute / Audience’.
Once in this view, you’ll see two tabs at the top, one to add attributes and one to add audiences.
When applying data to your Crosstab, you can start off by applying attributes or audiences.
To apply attributes, first select the dataset you’d like to use.
Then, select the attributes you’d like to apply to your Crosstab. On the left-hand side, you’ll see that you can apply them as ‘Split’, ‘AND’, or ‘OR’. ‘SPLIT’ keeps each attribute in its respective row or column, ‘AND’ combines the attributes by anding the statements, and ‘OR’ combines the attributes by or-ing the statement.
Once you’ve set up the attributes as you wish, you can apply them as a row or column.
To add your audience, follow the same steps as applying your attributes above.
Filtering your Crosstab and adding a new base
Without context, your data is pretty worthless. Rest assured, you can add filters to your crosstabs to help contextualize the data and narrow your scope. Our filter options include waves (research periods) and locations, and you can also add specific bases.
You’ll find all of these options at the top of your crosstab:
Wave filters
You can easily select which research waves you want added to your analysis using the filter menu. By default, the last 4 waves (12 months) are applied to your crosstab. The ‘Waves’ option is at the top left of your filter menu. You will need to add in an audience/ attribute before you can filter by waves.
What time periods are you interested in? To change the waves you want, just click on the filter, select the relevant waves, and click ‘Apply’.
Market filters
Which markets do you want to see? You can select the locations you want in your analysis using the filter menu. By default, all locations (53 markets) are applied to your crosstab. The ‘Locations’ option is at the right of your filter menu:
To change the locations applied, click on the ‘Locations’ filter. This opens a selection panel. Click the ‘Deselect All’ button at the top of the panel to remove all markets.
Click the checkbox next to a region to choose all markets within that region, or use the dropdown menu to select individual markets. Finally, click ‘Apply X locations’ at the bottom of the panel.
Adding a new base
Which audience are you interested in? Adding a new base allows you to filter the base audience of your crosstab. A base can be made up of a single or combination of data points, or you can use a pre-built audience. Tip: rebasing acts as if you have affixed that audience/combination of data points to your base, rows and columns.
By default, the base is set to ‘All Internet Users - age 16-64’. However, in certain markets, this will be ‘All Internet Users - age 16+’. You can add a new base using the ‘Add new base’ option at the bottom left of the filter menu.
Click ‘Add new base’, and simply add your attributes:
Once you’ve selected your attributes, these can be added as a split (separate bases) or combined with an ‘AND’ or ‘OR’ statement. After selecting your attribute(s), click ‘Apply x bases’ to add them to your crosstab. In this example, we’re adding 2 separate bases, Gen Z and Gen Y, to our crosstab.
To add an audience, just select “Add new base”, and click “Audiences” at the top of the panel.
You can then choose a base from your own audiences, or, go ahead and create a new audience, by clicking on ‘Create new audience’.
Finally, click ‘Apply x base’.
Merging & Saving rows and columns as audiences in your Crosstab
Within Crosstabs you have the ability to save a Row/ Column as a new audience. If you click the ellipsis, the drop-down option will allow you to save as a new audience.
To merge rows and columns, select the relevant attributes. We will combine rows 2 and 3 to gain a better understanding of individuals who have a shared interest in ‘Adventure/Extreme Sports’ and ‘Books/Literature.’
Once you have selected the merge option, you will be given the choice to use the ‘AND’ or ‘OR’ feature. This acts as the logic connector between the two attributes.
After selecting ‘Create new column or row’, this will populate into your crosstab.
Viewing and sorting your Crosstab
To adjust your viewing options, click on "View Options." Here, you will find all the available options.
Next to this, you also have the "Sort By" feature, which you can use to arrange either the rows or columns alphabetically.
Saving, sharing, and exporting your Crosstab
Saving & exporting
You can save your crosstab, making it easy to analyze your data over multiple sessions.
You can rename your crosstab by using the icon next to your crosstab's current name.
You can duplicate or make a copy of your crosstab by using the ‘Save as new’ feature.
Once you have saved your Crosstab, you can export it as an Excel Spreadsheet, making it easy to manipulate your data.
The export will reflect the table you built in the interface and show the full (non-rounded) output values.
The export will contain a heatmap if you’ve applied one before downloading.
Using the search feature, you can quickly search through your list of saved and shared crosstabs by name. You can also sort by ‘Date created’ and ‘Last modified’.
Share your Crosstab
Once you’ve saved your crosstab, you can share it with any other GWI user with access to crosstabs in their professional account.
You can share your crosstab with an individual user by email or share it with everyone within your organization with access by selecting ‘Share with everyone’.
You can use the Message feature to take notes on your crosstab. The message will be visible to everyone you share your crosstab with.
Recipients will be able to visualize the shared crosstab, but if they want to save any modification for it, they’ll need to use the ‘Save as new’ feature.
You'll find your shared crosstabs in the 'Shared' tab.
Please note: because crosstabs can contain different audiences and data, values will be only visualised if the recipient has the correct data permissions.
Calculating Averages in Crosstabs
Within Crosstabs, you can calculate averages for age, income, and media consumption.
To apply an average calculator to your Crosstab, click on ‘Add an Attribute / Audience’.
Select the dataset you’d like to use.
Navigate to the Age, Income, Or Media Consumption folder and apply the average calculator to your Crosstab as you would a normal attribute.
Our income calculator is broken down by location.
Our media calculator is broken down by each media channel.
How to trend data
To trend data over time, you need to add the relevant waves. First, select the ‘Waves’ filter, then add the respective waves. In our example, we will be adding the wave for 2022. Once you have done this, click ‘Apply’.
Click on add a new base.
The attributes box will open up which you need to go to the following pathway:
Data sets > GWI Core > Survey Details > Survey Waves > Survey Waves
Select the relevant waves. In our example, we’re going to select all the waves for 2022. Adjust the logic connector to ‘OR’ as respondents are only allowed to take the survey once in a 12 month period. Finally, hit ‘Apply 1 base’.
Next, repeat this step to add the 2023 data. Once done, you can switch between all three bases: 2023, 2022, and all internet users.
Creating & Understanding Audience Overlap in Crosstabs
In order to see an audience overlap, put your desired audience both in the column section, and in the row section. Look at either the column % or row % to see the overlap between the audience.
Here we can see that if our audience of men interested in cooking use one social media platform, how likely they are to use another social media platform. If we look at the column % in C2 for example, we can see that nearly 60% of men interested in cooking that use Tiktok, also use Instagram.
As this audience is already men interested in cooking, we may want to add another base. If we add a base of men interested in cooking, the indexes will fall, as we are now comparing men interested in cooking who use one social media platform, to the average male interested in cooking, rather than to the general population.
So here we can see if there’s an overlap between Facebook users and instagram users, or Instagram users and Tiktok users for example.
