New visitor - expiration of cookie

[kristin12345678]

Hello,

I have made a segment in workspace - I want to identify new visitors. See definition in the attachment.

For how long is the cookie being kept? I've read that for unique visitor the cookie is being kept for 5 years, but I've also heard that visitor profile ID is deleted after 1 year of inactivity.

For example: If a visitor was at a spesific site 2 years ago and go to the same site today. Is it a new or a returning visitor? (The visitor uses the same device and cookies has not been deleted).

Regards,

Kristin

[Amit_Kumar]

Kristin Angel ,

SiteCatalyst determines unique visitor information using several technologies. The primary method of calculating unique visitors is by setting a persistent cookie on the visitor's browser to uniquely identify the visitor. Cookie technology helps to avoid common pitfalls, for example, IP Pooling, caching, or tracking visitors behind a firewall,when counting unique visitors. For more information on IP Pooling, If the visitor has disabled cookies on their browser, or if the visitor's browser does not support persistent cookies, Omniture uses a combination of the IP address and the user agent string to determine if a visitor is unique or not. SiteCatalyst reports a small percentage (usually 1-2%) of visitors who do not support cookies.

In your case Visitor is not deleting any cookie but Visitor profiles are getting deleted after 1 year of inactivity regardless of any visitor ID cookie expiration so the persistent cookie s_vi will take the precedence.That means your visitor will be a repeat visitor as persistent cookie is valid for 5 years.

regards,

Amit

[Løjmann]

Hi,

Right, cookies are stores years unless the user don't delete them.

You could setup a segment with the definition that the visitor may not have been at your site in 6 months, 12 months or 2 years for example. Otherwise, if you want to just take the visitors coming that can't be recognised, then setup a segment where you take in the dimension 'Visit Number' and set that to 1, then you have all first-time visitors.

/Løjmann

[inêsc45775815]

Is any of the answers correct?

[Alexis_Cazes_ · Accepted solution]

Here are some documentation links:

Compare new visitors to return visitors

Some other threads about the same:

New Visitors (more than one visit)

A unique visitor can be identified in the following ways in Adobe Analytics (data feed documentation):

Analytics Visitor IDs

There are several ways a visitor can be identified in Analytics (listed in the following table in order of preference):

Order Used	Query Parameter (collection method)	post_visid_type column value	Present When
	vid (s.visitorID)	0	s.visitorID is set.
	aid (s_vi cookie)	3	Visitor had an existing s_vi cookie before you deployed the Visitor ID service, or you have a Visitor ID grace period configured.
	mid (AMCV_ cookie set by Experience Cloud ID service)	5	Visitor's browser accepts cookies (first-party), and the Experience Cloud ID service is deployed.
	fid (fallback cookie on H.25.3 or newer, or AppMeasurement for JavaScript)	4	Visitor's browser accepts cookies (first-party).
	HTTP Mobile Subscriber header	2	Device is recognized as a mobile device.
	IP Address, User Agent, Gateway IP Address	1	Visitor's browser does not accept cookies.

In many scenarios you might see 2 or 3 different IDs on a call, but Analytics will use the first ID present from that list as the official visitor ID, and split that value across the post_visid_high and post_visid_low columns. For example, if you are setting a custom visitor ID (included in the "vid" query parameter), that ID will be used before other IDs that might be present on that same hit.

In terms of cookies it depends if you have implemented the Visitor ID services or not but the general guidance for cookie expiration can be found here:

Analytics Cookies

Cookie Name: s_vi

Attribute	Description
Information Stored	Unique visitor ID time/date stamp
Expiration	2 years
Usage	This cookie is used to identify a unique visitor
Location	This cookie is stored at the domain of the image request - typically 2O7.net if you are using third-party cookies, or your domain if using first-party cookies.
Size	44 bytes

Note: Each Analytics visitor ID is associated with a visitor profile on Adobe servers. Visitor profiles are deleted after 1 year of inactivity regardless of any visitor ID cookie expiration.

Cookie Name: s_fid

Attribute	Description
Information Stored	Fallback unique visitor ID time/date stamp
Expiration	5 years
Usage	This cookie is used to identify a unique visitor if the standard s_vi cookie is unavailable due to third-party cookie restrictions. Not used for implementations that use first-party cookies.
Location	This cookie is stored on your domain as a first-party cookie.
Size	33 bytes

Cookie Name: AMCV_###@AdobeOrg

The Visitor ID service uses JavaScript to store a unique visitor ID in an AMCV_###@AdobeOrg cookie on the domain of the current website, where ### represents a random string of characters. For example, AMCV_1FD6776A524453CC0A490D44%40AdobeOrg. See also, Cookies and the ID Service.

Attribute	Description
Information Stored	Unique visitor IDs used by Experience Cloud Solutions.
Expiration	2 years
Usage	This cookie is used to identify a unique visitor
Location	This cookie is stored at the domain of the website (not the domain of the image request).
Size	Varies, most customers can expect this cookie to be around 200 bytes in length.

Please be aware that the cookies expiration can be changed in the implementation from the default expiration using:

s.cookieLifetime for s_vi cookies

cookieLifetime  for AMCV_ cookies