Hit Depth and Entries confusion

[aedelnevo77]

HI

i have a scenario my ETL team want me to explain.  We have seen cases whereby there is a Visit Number = 99, and then the Hit Depth = 3.  They quesion why there is no Hit Depth 1 or 2.  Digging further, i could see there were not any any Page views, there were not any Custom Link Instances, but adding in Entries, i could see there was an entry.  So i'm trying to establish a story to tell here. To explain how we can have an entry, yet not a Page View or Custom Link Call.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Just checking to understand the context, but do you have any segments that are being applied at the panel level, or using a Virtual Report suite where the segment could be impacting the data being returned (i.e. the Hit Depth 1 and 2 are excluded by the segments)?

[aedelnevo77]

Hello

The only thing i'm using is a segment saying ECID equals (then the number).

i'm not using a VRS or any other segment.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Is it possible your ECID isn't being set on all hits? So for this user, those hits don't have your custom ECID dimension, and therefore are excluded from the report?

Update, the easiest way to track the ECID as a custom dimension is to use Dynamic Variable notation:

s.eVarX = "D=mid";

or in your Adobe Launch tags:

Then you don't have to use the JS function to get the value, or try to extract from a cookie... if the call has the ECID (passed as "mid" in the request), this will automatically set that value into your dimension

[aedelnevo77]

Hi, can i ask, how can i tell this? The panel is looking at the hits for this specific ECID, and for this visitor, we can see that there is an instance for this visitor (which i strongly suspect is a bot).  But on Visit 99, the first hit depth is an entry, but not a visit, then i can't see hit depth 2, however on hit depth 3, its a visit and an ecid instance.

I am told by my team that they have seen LOTS of examples where the first hit depth doesn't start at 1.  i think in june alone there was nearly 6000 visits where the first visit hit depth doesn't start at 1.

While we know its probably bot behaviour, the team just want a plausible idea of how its possible.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Well for this particular user, unless you already have a raw data feed process, that could be hard...

But what you can try to do if this issue seems widespread is to do some testing in something like Incognito mode... make sure the Adobe Debugger is up and working for incognito, then try going to your site.

What dimension are you using for ECID? watch the hits that come in... is it populated? You may also want to test logged into the debugger so that you can see what is send and the post-processed values.

You should see an mid value in the hit... if that is missing, then that's an issue, but if it's there, check your custom dimension and see if that is set properly.

[aedelnevo77]

Hello

In answer to your question, the ECID is in an eVar set on a visit expiry.  for this particular visit, you can see that values are populated. 

i'm afraid i don't understand mid value in the hit.

Also, how is it possible for an entry not to be an occurence of some sort. Just looking for hypothetical example.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Just because a value is set to expire with the visit does not mean that its being properly set on the initial calls.... 

If you have this scenario:

• Hit 1
  • custom ECID dimension fails to set
  • No value will be available on this hit
• Hit 2
  • custom ECID dimension fails to set
  • No value will be available on this hit
• Hit 3
  • custom ECID dimension is set
  • Value will be available
• Hit 4
  • custom ECID dimension fails to set
  • You will now still have a value because of your visit level expiry
• Hit 5
  • custom ECID dimension is set
  • Value will be available

In the above, the first hit to properly set the ECID was Hit 3; because Hit 1 and 2 failed to set the dimension, no value will be available to them.. if you are missing Hit Depth until Hit 3, this would match your scenario.

mid is the request parameter in the Adobe tracking for the ECID (this is the built in value, the Value that Adobe uses to identify the person when they are processing the data).

ECID = Experience Cloud ID

MID = Marketing ID

MCID = Marketing Cloud ID

^ These are all the same ID, Adobe had changed the name a few times, but just like "c1" in the request is "prop1", and "v1" in the request is "eVar1", and "ch" in the request is still tied to the old name "Channel" but in the Workspace it's called "Site Section"

my concern is that however you are currently pulling your ECID value into your custom dimension isn't stable and is resulting in not populating the data correctly, leaving you with gaps for the first few hits until the value is successfully set.

Using "D=mid" should assure that this is set every time, rather than a custom coded solution.

[aedelnevo77]

hi Jennifer

You have been really helpful and i'm most appreciative.  I can try that.  But can i ask:

Will it help explain what the visitor was doing in that first entry.  That's the bit i'm failing to comprehend.  Will ensuring i capture correctly the ECID on every hit, help me understand that? 

For instance, what is the visitor doing that means its counting the entry, but its not populating occurrences?