Identifying a session

[saqibali]

Hi. A newbie question. I am trying to establish a session (potentially cross device). I am looking at visid_high, visid_low, hitid_high and hitid_low and the visit field. and the page / page_url field.

I am trying to understand how the visid differs from hitid. The documentation does not have much: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/export/analytics-data-feed/data-feed-contents/d...

[Deepika_S_V]

• In Adobe Analytics data feeds, visid_high combined with visid_low forms a unique visitor ID that remains the same for a user across multiple hits and visits, as long as they use the same browser or have a consistent ECID.
• On the other hand, hitid_high and hitid_low together represent a unique ID for each individual hit, such as a page view or event, and change with every new interaction.
• If you only want to identify unique users, the visitor ID (visid) alone is enough. For accurate cross-device tracking, it's essential to implement and maintain ECID properly.

[pradnya_balvir]

Hi @saqibali ,

Key Differences Between visid and hitid

Field(s)	What it Identifies	Scope	Example Use
visid_high + visid_low	A visitor ID	Cross-sessions (per browser/device)	Track all sessions from a single user (cookie/device-based)
hitid_high + hitid_low	A unique hit ID	Per hit (page view, event)	Identify individual page views or events

visid_high + visid_low

• Together, they uniquely identify a visitor.

• Usually based on a browser cookie (s_vi)or ECID if you're using the Adobe Experience Cloud ID service.

• Persistent over time on the same browser (unless cookies are cleared).

• Different across devices (unless using ECID with cross-device stitching).

hitid_high + hitid_low

• Unique identifier for every single hit (i.e., every row in the data feed).
• Adobe generates a unique hitid for each action: page view, custom event, etc.
• Even if two hits are part of the same session, they will each have different hitid values.

Cross-Device Tracking?

If you're trying to identify sessions across devices:

• visid_high/low will differ across devices by default.
• Use post_visid_type = 5 (ECID) and customer stitching via customer_id if available.
• Cross-device analysis is more reliable in Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) or AEP.

I hope this information help you.

Thanks.

Pradnya

[saqibali]

Thanks @pradnya_balvir and @Deepika_S_V 

What's the difference between visid_high and visid_low? Do we need to use both?

[pradnya_balvir]

Hi @saqibali ,

Yes, always use both to uniquely identify a visitor.

Adobe splits the visitor ID (visid) into two 32-bit integers:

• visid_high: The first part of the visitor ID (high-order bits)
• visid_low: The second part (low-order bits)

Together, they make up a 64-bit identifier for the user: essentially a unique long number that represents a visitor.

[saqibali]

Thanks @pradnya_balvir . 

Question, we are seeing log of entries where the visid_high+visid_low , pagename, date_time and hit_date are same. However the visit_page_num is different . I tried reading through the documentation for visit_page_num but it is little confusing. Can you please explain what visit_page_num is ?

Thanks,

Saqib

[nitesh__anwani]

Hi @saqibali ,

I’m sharing some documentation that is very helpful for calculating metrics from the raw data feed. It should answer all your questions regarding the columns in the data feed.

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/perspectives/from-data-to-insights-navigating-adobe-analytics-...

https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-analytics-blogs/sample-sql-queries-to-query-a...

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/export/analytics-data-feed/data-feed-contents/d...

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/export/analytics-data-feed/df-faq#:~:text=treat...

There is no common identifier across devices that allows you to analyze the cross-device user journey using only the Adobe Visitor ID. However, if a custom user ID is being tracked in one of the variables, you can use that custom ID in the data feed to perform cross-device analysis.

Adobe identifies users based on the Experience Cloud ID (ECID), which is cookie-specific and tied to a particular device and browser.