How to Handle Duplicate Event Counts

[muttinthehut]

Hi - let me set up the scenario:  We have a process on our site which allows a user to price an item (not unlike getting a quote for an item).  We have a "price confirmation" event that shows that the user viewed the price.  The user has the ability to save this price and retrieve it later.  There is a unique id assigned when the user views a price, so that the user can come back later and retrieve the originally generated price.  The unique id (transaction id) is stored in an eVar, and when we run the eVar report, ideally we'd like to see one price confirmation event per transaction id.   If the user agrees to the price, they can come back later and purchase the item, which at that time a purchase id is assigned along with a purchase confirmation event (we aren't using any of the ecommerce vars for this).

The issue I'm running into is when a user returns and retrieves the original price transaction, the price confirmation event is fired again and I'm getting a few pricing transaction IDs that have multiple pricing confirmation events.  On the eVar report the total events are overstating the actual number of IDs that were generated.

Issue:

I'm looking for a way to prevent the "price confirmation" event from being counted multiple times, so that the number of actual transaction IDs matches the number of pricing confirmation events (there should only be one pricing confirmation event per transaction id).

I think event serialization might work, but just wanted to get feedback from others.  I also don't want the pricing eVar to expire until the user completes the purchase.  Thanks in advance!

[brian_au · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You will need to serialize the custom event and that will clear up your tracking issue. The best fit sounds like leveraging your transaction ID as the 'Use event ID' serialization mechanism.

Best,

Brian

Reference info: https://helpx.adobe.com/analytics/using/event-serialization.html

Event Settings

There are three different settings an event can be set to. These settings are not client-facing, and as such can only be enabled by an Adobe representative.

• Always record event: This is the default behavior of all events when initially enabled. All events included in image requests will be sent directly to SiteCatalyst, including page reloads.
• Record once per visit: An event with this setting enabled will only track the first instance of that event in a given visit. Once a new visit starts, each event with this setting enabled can be tracked again. This is an effective way to mitigate duplicate events via browser refreshes.
• Use event ID: This setting allows the capability to associate each event with a unique ID. If SiteCatalyst sees an eventID it has already seen before with that variable, it will not be counted in reporting.

The only event that cannot have event serialization enabled is the purchase event, as this uses the s.purchaseID variable. All other eCommerce events and custom events can have these settings enabled.

Note:

The purchaseID variable serializes all events within that image request. Image requests with the same purchase ID will not only deduplicate the purchase event, but all other conversion events listed in the s.events variable.

[muttinthehut]

Super - we are planning to do exactly as you suggested Brian.  Just wanted a sanity check. Thanks for the thoughts and info.