Marketing Channel Visits vs Marketing Channel Instances

[JSP2]

Hello,

My understanding is that Visits can be higher in the Marketing Channel Report over Marketing Channel Instances if Direct/Session refresh are set to NOT override Last Touch. Since visits are incremented each time a new channel is hit, a user could hit multiple channels in one session.  Is that a correct understanding?  

If the business just wants a very high level report of traffic (not conversions) coming from each Marketing Channel, which is the most accurate metric to use?  Visits? Marketing Channel Instances? or Campaign  Click Throughs (I read somewhere that this could be used as Visits metric)?   As you can see here, there is quite a discrepancy in values.  I don't know which metric accurately answers the question, "how many customers came from (Marketing Channel)?"

I know that this question has been asked here https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-analytics-questions/marketing-channel-instanc... , but the answer in the post is comparing the SUM of the Visits in a Marketing Channel report vs the SUM of the Visits in a site wide report.  

On a given day, the sum of the Visits in the Marketing Channel report is higher, since a customer can touch multiple channels in a Visit.  As stated in the referenced post, the total Visits is always the same because of de-duplication.  I am specifically asking about the comparison between Marketing Channel Visits and Marketing Channel Instances, as shown in my original screen shot.

Marketing Channel Visits

Thanks

Site Wide Visits:

Thanks in advance!

Jen

[yuhuisg · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, the bolded part in this statement is wrong:

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@JSP2 wrote:

Since visits are incremented each time a new channel is hit, a user could hit multiple channels in one session.  Is that a correct understanding?  

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Visits are not incremented each time a new channel is hit. That might be how it works in Google Analytics, but not so with Adobe Analytics. In Adobe Analytics, visits are incremented only due to inactivity timeouts (and some other reasons, e.g. excessive hits in a short duration, but those normally apply to bots.)
E.g.

• 12:00pm Tom arrives at your website from Natural Search.
• 12:02pm: Tom goes to another page in your website.
• 12:05pm: Tom goes to yet another page in your website.
• Then, Tom goes for a toilet break.
• 12:20pm: Tom arrives at your website from Email.
• 12:22pm: Tom goes to another page in your website.
• Then, Tom goes for lunch.
• 2:00pm: Tom arrives at your website from Paid Search.

For the above scenario, Tom had 2 Visits (starting at 12:00pm and 2:00pm) but 3 Marketing Channel Instances (starting at 12:00pm, 12:20pm and 2:00pm).

Marketing Channel	Marketing Channel Instances	Visits
Natural Search	1	1
Email	1	1
Paid Search	1	1
Total	3	2

So, which metric to use to get a "very high level report of traffic (not conversions) coming from each Marketing Channel"?

If the nature of your property is that people are unlikely to get to it from more than one channel in the same visit (i.e. within less than 30 minutes between every interaction in your property), then you can use Visits as your metric. But if there is a high chance that people do use more than one channel in the same visit, then Marketing Channel Instances might be more useful.

[JSP2]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.  I understand your example, but then how do I explain why Marketing Channel Visits are ALWAYS HIGHER than Marketing Channel Instances in this report below?  In your example, it is very clear that there are 2 Visits/3 Marketing Channel Instances.  If I needed to answer the question, how much Direct traffic did we get on this day?  Is it accurate to say "92,705 visits" or  "53,915 Marketing Channel Instances"??  The business won't understand what "Marketing Channel Instances" so not only do I want to ensure accurate reporting, but terminology/metrics that are familiar.      NOTE: It is likely that our customers can hit multiple channels in a single visit.        

Thanks so much in advance for your time.

[yuhuisg]

What you're seeing looks like a result of how your Marketing Channel Processing Rules have been configured, in particular, with those rules that don't have any conditions that use Tracking Code. E.g. for Direct, is it set to be set only with the First Hit of a Visit?

[JSP2]

I do have Direct and Session Refresh to NOT override Last-Touch, which would be the same as only set with the First Hit of a Visit.  I did an experiment last week where I changed these two channels to override Last-Touch Channel and it definitely did make the Visits much less and Marketing Channel instances much higher, which makes sense.    I guess I just need to think about the original business question - which marketing channel generates the most traffic? In our case, it is very possible for customers to hit multiple channels in a single Visit.   It sounds like your recommendation, in that case would be Marketing Channel instances?

Thanks again for your time.   I really appreciate it!

[yuhuisg]

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@JSP2 wrote:

In our case, it is very possible for customers to hit multiple channels in a single Visit.   It sounds like your recommendation, in that case would be Marketing Channel instances?

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Yes, that sounds possible

[JSP2]

Thanks again for your input and time.