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SOLVED

Junk Data in eVar

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Level 2

Hi everyone! 

Let me explain the issue first, supposed that you have an eVarX which is going to store the UTM parameters in other words it will store campaign data.

 

1. The problem is that sometimes is sending junk data to adobe analytics it seems to be some hardcoded values. This is happening in a new property that I created from scratch and I didn't set that hardcoded variable in the set variables section for the global variables rule. I also checked the processing rules but I don't see anything being set in there. Any thoughts about any other place were evars can be set with default values? (This values were set by another person in the company which is not longer with us, so I don't know what he did and where)

 

2. I decided to use Campaign OOB but sometimes is sending %campaign% as default value. Is there any way to change the default value of variables OOB in adobe?

 

 

 

1 Accepted Solution

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Correct answer by
Community Advisor

In that case, you might need to investigate this from the reverse. Starting with your AA report, break down the "%campaign%" Tracking Code values by Page and/or Custom Link (use 2 tables). Do you see any pattern where this "%campaign%" is being set with certain Pages and/or Custom Links only? If so, then that might indicate that with those hits, your Launch property isn't being used, so something else (e.g. an old implementation) is setting this value.

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13 Replies

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Employee Advisor

Check your Launch implementation. In some environment it is using the data element "campaign" but that has not been published to that environment. If Launch is unable to find the data element, it will read it as a literal value - "%campaign%

 

If you are comfortable, you can share the URL, and can check the launch library 

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Community Advisor

For Q1:

Are you sending data to an existing report suite in AA or a new one? You only mentioned that you had setup a new Launch property, but didn't say about where the data is being collected. If you're sending to an existing report suite, then it could be that some other website is sending data to the same eVar with the so-called hardcoded values.

For Q2:

Have you created a corresponding data element called "campaign" in your Launch property?

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Level 2

We have a lot of portals and all the data being collected with Adobe goes to the same report suite and yes, all of those portals are sending that campaign variable to the same report suite. To give you more context of the testing that I did yesterday.

1. eVar1 was storing the campaign data with junk data in Property1.

2. Property2 was created from scratch using Campaign OOB variable to store campaign data avoiding junk data.

3. Removed eVar1 completely from Property1.

4. Created a processing rule to override eVar1 with the values stored in Campaign OOB variable.

 

Results in Property2:

Campaign OOB Variable is showing next values:

Unspecified

%campaign%

UTM Parameters

 

eVar34 is showing next values:

Unspecified

%campaign%

UTM Parameters

||no value||no value

 

Which doesn't make sense to me because we are overriding the eVar1 with Campaign OOB, we should be seeing the same values in both of them and like I said, eVar1 was removed from all places in the property1 and in property2 was never set.

 

Also, I want to point to another thing. We have an eVar in which we are storing the name of the property so if you take ||no value||novalue and you breakdown using the Launch Property evar you'll see that belongs to Property2. Which again it doesn't make sense because eVar1 isn't being populated in that property only Campaign OOB is being set in that property.

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Community Advisor

Using Launch's global search (the search feature at the top of the UI), try searching Property 2 for components that are using eVar1. It could be that eVar1 is being set unexpectedly in another Rule.

(BTW I assume your problematic eVar is "eVar1", not "eVar34". It's probably a typo there. )

In AA, after breaking down eVar1 by the Launch Property eVar, break it down further by Page and/or Custom Link and/or Download Link and/or Exit Link to see if there are any clues there.

Also, just wondering, what do you mean by "Campaign OOB" in Launch? AFAIK there's no such data element or component called that in Launch. A screenshot might help to illustrate this. 

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Level 2

Hi yuhuisg! We decided to shutdown eVar1 until we have enough time to see what is happening, probably I'll be working on that in the near future and just to clarify because probably I used the wrong terminology when I said OOB I meant Out of the Box (OOTB). (see picture below).1.png

With that being said, I'm still facing junk data because even if I set default value as empty, I'm getting %campaign% in the workspace which I don't understand. (see picture below) Any clue about this?

2.png

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Community Advisor

That junk "%campaign%" data is not junk. It means that Adobe Launch could not find a data element called "campaign" from your Launch property, so it could not replace "%campaign%" with the appropriate value, and so it simply returned the string "%campaign%" as-is.

So your next step should be to find out where "%campaign%" is being used in your property. If it is really supposed to be used, then you need to make sure you have a data element called "campaign" that returns your expected data.

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Level 2

Huh interesting, thanks for explaining that. The weird thing in here is that I don't have a data element called "campaign" and when I set the campaign variable I used another data element called "UTM Parameters Concatenated"(see picture in above response). Also, If I use the search bar with %campaign% there isn't any result because I didn't use that name in the property. Any clue of what could be happening? Because for me it doesn't make any sense and I don't know what else could be causing this.

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Community Advisor

What you've discovered is what I would expect to.

Since you had setup the property by yourself, I assume that you had assumed that "%campaign%" will have the value of what you had set in that "Campaign" field in the AA extension. So in your mind, "%campaign%" = "%UTM Parameters Concatenated%".

But that is not the case. When it encounters "%...%" data elements, Launch can only refer to data elements that have been setup in the property. Ergo, no "campaign" data element = Launch treats "%campaign%" as a string.

So you should set your eVar with "%UTM Parameters Concatenated%", then you should see the correct campaign values from then on.

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Level 2

Hi @yuhuisg ! Sorry for my late response I have been kind of busy at my job but I really appreciate all of your help on this.

Actually, my data element is called UTM Parameters Concatenated and the library is in the respective environment published with those changes. So, If I have a data element called UTM Parameters Concatenated and I'm using that data element to set the Campaign OOTB variable then I would expect to find in the workspace probably %UTM Parameters Concatenated% instead of %campaign% because that's the name of my element.

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Community Advisor

Then that means somewhere in your property, there is/are still references to "%campaign%". You'll have to hunt them down and change them to the appropriate data element, "%UTM Parameters Concatenated%".

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Level 2

So that's the thing... Since I created the property from scratch I have never set an element called campaign but just to be cautious I searched the element in the property and nope, there isn't any element with that name set on the property. So, where does that data come from? 

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Correct answer by
Community Advisor

In that case, you might need to investigate this from the reverse. Starting with your AA report, break down the "%campaign%" Tracking Code values by Page and/or Custom Link (use 2 tables). Do you see any pattern where this "%campaign%" is being set with certain Pages and/or Custom Links only? If so, then that might indicate that with those hits, your Launch property isn't being used, so something else (e.g. an old implementation) is setting this value.

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Level 2

I'll try to do that because I think that could be the only way to find explanation on this issue. Thanks @yuhuisg !