Handling “unspecified” hits in Adobe Analytics

Question

Hi Community,

We have decent amount of “unspecified” hits in our report suites and would like to find out the real reason behind these unspecified hits. Im trying to answer below questions about the current unspecified hits we have in our reports:

1: Is it really because of the missing evars/ values ?

2: are there any issues in implementation which we need to fix?

Some of these unspecified hits may be reporting from missing values because i noticed we are sending “” strings for a-lot of different eVars within different events. However, im not 100% sure if thats the only cause.

so, to get started, I'm thinking of tracking all empty digital data objects as “not defined” instead of “”, but i’m wondering if there will be any issues with capturing it as “not defined” . Will it over inflate our reports with “not defined” value if i start tracking all evars as “not defined” if there is no value? What are the best practices?

Appreciate any suggestions

reduce the number of unspecified hits we get.

Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted Answer

First off, there is nothing inherently wrong with "unspecified" in an eVar... this is normal behaviour.

Unlike Props that are only hit attribution, and therefore empty values are automatically ignored, eVars being conversion variables that support persistence (you can set to hit too), appear in your reports differently.. every hit that doesn't not have a value (set or persisted) will show up as "unspecified".

In some uses, this is very handy. For instance, I want to correlate an internal campaign tracking to my orders... Orders that did not interact with an internal campaign will be unspecified, showing me the exact percentage of my orders that were not impacted by an internal campaign.

However, sometimes those values are unhelpful... this is why Adobe has a setting specifically built into Workspace tables to include or not include unspecified.

Simply go into the dimension filter and uncheck "include unspecified" if this is getting in the way.

Now, there is still a chance that your tracking is incorrect and missing values, that is something only you can determine... but seeing "unspecified" is not an indication of a problem on its own.

manojsingh-tech · Answer

Potential Cause How to Check FixMissing eVar values (i.e., no value captured at hit-level)  Use Hit Depth breakdown to see when eVars are assigned.Ensure eVars are set before the tracking call (s.t() or s.tl()).Empty strings ("") being sent instead of a value Look at Network request (b/ss call) and check if eVarX= (empty). Use NULL or avoid sending eVar instead of "".eVars being set on one hit but expected in another (Persistence issue) Use Visit-Level Breakdown to see where eVars drop off. Ensure correct persistence settings in Admin Console.Incorrect Processing Rules overwriting valuesCheck Processing Rules in Admin Console.  Remove any rule setting an empty value.Data Layer issues (values not available when the call fires) Open Console in DevTools: console.log(digitalData); Ensure data is populated before the tracking call.

Potential Cause	How to Check	Fix
Missing eVar values (i.e., no value captured at hit-level)	Use Hit Depth breakdown to see when eVars are assigned.	Ensure eVars are set before the tracking call (s.t() or s.tl()).
Empty strings ("") being sent instead of a value	Look at Network request (b/ss call) and check if eVarX= (empty).	Use NULL or avoid sending eVar instead of "".
eVars being set on one hit but expected in another (Persistence issue)	Use Visit-Level Breakdown to see where eVars drop off.	Ensure correct persistence settings in Admin Console.
Incorrect Processing Rules overwriting values	Check Processing Rules in Admin Console.	Remove any rule setting an empty value.
Data Layer issues (values not available when the call fires)	Open Console in DevTools: console.log(digitalData);	Ensure data is populated before the tracking call.

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