adobe tracking code not capture properl

[xiaoming123]

hello all, 

I have a url: www.abcdomain.com?cid=sg|cntest.

"cntest" is my campaign name.

under my reporting, when i breakdown the url evar with campaign evar, there are unspecified returned. 

Evar Page link (filtered) = www.abcdomain.com?cid=sg|cntest

Evar Campaign name (breakdown), there will be unspecified records and cntest records with page views. 

Appreciate the help to understand why and how to correct this issue?

[bjoern__koth]

Hi @xiaoming123 ,

to clarify:

• are you setting the s.campaign attribute based on your "cid" query parameters? This must be set to send the tracking code to AA
• what exactly is the pipe doing in your cid=sg|cntest ?
• also bear in mind that eVars contain Unspecified when they have not been set yet or they have expired. So, it is not unusual to see Unspecified showing up in cases where it was not set
• also note that a pipe character "|" should be encoded in URL strings as well as "%7C", so your value would rather have to look like this "cid=sg%7Ccntest"

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Just to help expand on @bjoern__koth's answer, I'm going to add some examples.

First off, let's assume your campaign eVar is set to Visit expiry (I am also going to assume that you are using some code to split your values on the pipe, since you talk about "cntest" is isolation of the "sg" value)

Visit 1

• ~/home/?cid=sg|cntest
  • eVar1 set to "sg"
  • eVar2 set to "cntest"
• ~/category/
  • eVar1 is not set, but maintains value "sg" due to visit attribution
  • eVar2 is not set, but maintains value "cntest" due to visit attribution
• ~/product-detail/
  • eVar1 is not set, but maintains value "sg" due to visit attribution
  • eVar2 is not set, but maintains value "cntest" due to visit attribution

Visit 2

• ~/contest/?cid=sg|something
  • eVar1 set to "sg"
  • eVar2 set to "something"
• ~/category/
  • eVar1 is not set, but maintains value "sg" due to visit attribution
  • eVar2 is not set, but maintains value "something" due to visit attribution
• ~/product/?cid=sg|promo   (within the same visit a second campaign is hit)
  • eVar1 set to "sg"
  • eVar2 set to "promo"
• ~/category/
  • eVar1 is not set, but maintains value "sg" due to visit attribution
  • eVar2 is not set, but maintains value "promo" due to visit attribution

Visit 3

• ~/home/
  • eVar1 has no value
  • eVar2 has no value
• ~/product/
  • eVar1 has no value, and nothing persists from earlier in the visit
  • eVar2 has no value, and nothing persists from earlier in the visit

		Page View	Visit	eVar2 Instance
eVar2		9	3	3
	cntest	3	1	1
	something	2	1	1
	promo	2	1	1
	unspecified	2	1	0

Where the eVar was explicitly set, that is when an "eVar2 Instance" is triggered. Where the value is set or persisted due to the expiry, that will be tracked by the page views, and Visits will count the visits where the values existed.

Unspecified here is perfectly normal and expected, since 100% of your traffic will not be coming from a campaign... there is going to be "direct to site" visits, with no campaign name.

However, from a reporting standpoint, you may not want to show unspecified in your reports... which is why there is an option to include or not include it:

Simply uncheck this box on the tables where you don't want / need unspecified to be included.

[xiaoming123]

i'm breaking down the campaign name using page url containing the tracking parameters. with the exact single url, it should return only 1 campaign name without unspecified, however it did. 

also even if i filtered to a single date, this scenario happens. so we can also rule out that the processing rule was wrongly configured for some days. 

hope that helps to add more context!

[igupta]

Hey @xiaoming123 ,

Looks like Campaign Name a classified dimension? Can you see what you get when you break it down by parent dimension? Also, if it is classified, what does the rule set looks like? Can you see what you get if you break it down by Tracking Code dimension?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Yes, if your "Campaign Name" is a classification, and not a specific eVar, that's probably the issue. Classifications process every 4-6 hours.. and your screenshot is showing "today"... which means there could be up to 6 hours of unprocessed data... this will be "unspecified" until the classifications process.

Some people create a catchall classification rule, so that processed data that doesn't match a rule will come through as "none", or "no matched value", etc... leaving unspecified as completely unprocessed data, so that you can easily see what has been processed, but failed to match the rules... and what has yet to be processed.

[xiaoming123]

Breaking down to the tracking code evar results in same outcome where Unspecified is present.

Even if i were to filter back to earlier dates like 20 Oct, same outcome.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

What happens if you break unspecified down by the actual eVar, as in the original value that the classification is based on?

While I assume you should see the full "sg|cntest" I want to confirm that the CID was actually tracked, that this isn't a case of the value wasn't tracked properly, therefore there is nothing to process... 

[xiaoming123]

The actual evar will have "sg|cntest" and "unspecified".

[Jennifer_Dungan]

So if your actual eVar is missing data (in this context - i.e. url has ?cid=sg|cntest, but the eVar has both the cid and no value), then it sounds like you have an issue with your tracking... can you try breaking that down by device or operating system, or anything else that you can think of to try and see where you are missing tracking....

Do you have Mobile Apps with Universal Linking enabled? Is it possible that users are opening that link directly into the app, where the URL is being sent to Adobe, but the cid isn't being parsed and included as your campaign dimension?

[xiaoming123]

Nope, we dont have any mobile apps. The common social media apps are passing the values in evar as well. 

Tried breaking down with different dimensions, the only abnormality i observed is that Andriod Operating System (Andriod 11 to Andriod 14) has the highest unspecified values. 

Are there any limitation on Andriod for AA?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Not typically.. I checked, and I can only find a very small number of page views that got an unspecified in my campaign data... and it's only against a handful of specific URLs..  I suspect something else loaded on the page that caused a cascading failure on the script used to process the page... 

However, if you are seeing an issue that seems to be related to Android, you may need to do some extra testing on android... You may need to use a proxy tester like Charles, Fiddler, or HTTP Toolkit to send the internet from an android device through your computer so you can see what is being captured... or use a service like BrowserStack and watch the logs while testing using an android device there (this requires a BrowserStack account.. you may need to check with your Dev or QA team to see if they have an account you can use; or if they can help run the test).

[xiaoming123]

The campaign was for display ads specifically. Does the views remain low in your case?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

We don't have a lot of display ads... but where it's coming from shouldn't matter... the tracking is based specifically on the parameters in the URL

[xiaoming123]

We can ignore "sg". |cntest with the pipe delimits the different values that will be further breakdown in my marketing classification rule. 

And yes, we also processed %7C and | as similar delimiter.

[igupta]

Hey @xiaoming123 ,

What is the difference in page views that you are seeing attributed to unspecified? Ideally, if you are looking at the URL report with query parameter as intended, you should not be seeing the unspecified if breakdowns are correct.

Best,

Isha

[SSampsa]

Depending how you are collecting that value, if you're using a method that only captures the value if it has changed (so repeated values don't get captured), it can lead to page views for the same page without the value being read, as it has not changed from the previous recorded value. To verify check out "visits" instead of "page views" to see if they match and if so, it could be as I've described.