Issue with Internal marketing channel data

[Naveen_KumarPr1]

Hi team, Can you please help me to understand, how exactly internal marketing channel works with a Niche example as I'm unable to understand from adobe website and then we are facing issue when referring to the client's tracking code data being broken down for "Internal" marketing channel 

Tracking code data showing google & bing cpc values which we are unable to understand.

Request you to do the needful

Thank you in advance for your help !

Regards,

[MahimitraCh1]

Scenario:

1. A user lands on the homepage from a Google Ads campaign (source = Google CPC).

2. They click a homepage banner promoting limited-edition shoes → this is internal navigation.

3. Then, they land on the product page and eventually make a purchase.

Ideal Tracking (Channels):

• First touch: Paid Search (Google CPC)

• Next interaction: Internal Marketing (banner on homepage)

So in Adobe:

• The Internal Marketing Channel would pick up the internal banner click that took the user to a key product category or promo.

• It should never override the original external source (e.g., Google CPC), unless you're using last-touch attribution and Internal is placed higher in the processing rules.
  
  
  
  

  1. Review Processing Rules in Adobe Analytics:

  • Go to Admin > Report Suites > Marketing Channels > Processing Rules

  • Check how the “Internal” channel is defined.

  • Make sure it only picks up traffic with very specific internal parameters (e.g.,cid = 'banner_homePage'), and that it’s lower in the rule order than Paid Search, Display, etc.

  2. Ensure CPC Campaigns Preserve Query Strings:

  • When users click from Google/Bing, their UTM or GCLID should persist as they navigate the site.

  • Use a tool like Adobe Experience Platform Debugger to see if these params disappear after an internal click.

  3. Add Referrer Check in Internal Rule:

  • Add logic that says: “Only classify as Internal if the referrer is your own domain AND tracking code contains internal values.”

  • This avoids classifying Google/Bing as Internal just because of shared parameters like  cid.

[Naveen_KumarPr1]

Hi, appreciate your prompt response and I completely understood your response. I would like to take our discussion further and please help to answer the below queries 

1) Is it fine to breakdown the Tracking code with "Internal" marketing channel variable against a metric (form submission) with Last touch attribution (look back window: 30 days) & please find the marketing channel expiration below;

2) When breaking down the "TC" with "Internal" marketing channel, 78% of the data is showing unspecified 

3) There is difference between Adobe Standard "Internal" marketing channel processing rule & Client defined "Internal" processing rule. Can you please let me know, will this make any impact?

Below is the Adobe defined marketing channel processing rule for Internal traffic

Below is the client defined processing rule 

Thanks & Regards,

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Personally, I would avoid mixing your external channels with your internal ones...

So whether I am using CIDs or UTMs for my external channels (and for my standard marketing channels), I would use an ICID or ITMs for my internal banners, setting up custom eVar dimensions to track my internal campaigns completely separately from my external

This way, my Marketing Channels data is clean for "what is driving people to my site", and my internal campaign tracking is based on how people are interacting with elements inside my website.

My External and Internal campaigns never overwrite each other, but I can correlate the two together if I want to see how external campaigns and internal campaigns interact with one another.

This also goes back to the best practices for GA UA, back when any new UTM used to create a whole new Visit.... so mixing external and internal was a huge issue and needed to be avoided.