"Activity Map Page" and "Previous Page"

[#1]

Hello Experts,

Would you please let me know: to a specific page, why the activity map page can be "none" although it always have "previous page"?

My understanding is: if user click linkB on pageA and lead to pageB, then, pageA is the "previous page" of pageB, also, when I breakdow pageB by "Activity map page", pageA will be the one.

But I found activity map page can be "none".

RealCase:

We are on the way to understand traffic source mix% of a specific page.

I tried to make following categories:

Page A breakdown by Hit Depth,

1. Hit depth = 1, means it's the first page user visited from outside, then breakdown this again by “referrer domain" or  "Traffic Source", e.g. SEO, SEM, Email Marketing, Social Media, Other Referrers

2. Hit depth > 1, means it's not the entry page, then breakdown by "Activity Page", so that we can know on which page user is lead.

Then I found big counts under "none" in the 2nd situation. But when I breakdown it by "previous page", there's data.

e.g.

Total: 173 page views on page A at the 7th hit, 49 "none" = without record on the click on the page.

So, I suppose there will be 49 page views without "previouse page", which means 173-49=124 pageviews with "previous page"

Then I breakdonw the Hit Depth 8 by Previous Page: there are 170 page views with "previous page".

So, is there anything wrong in my understanding about "activity map page" and "previous page"?

(e.g.: in a visit queue, Page A > Page B > "Do a search on google" > "Enter Page C", then Hit Depth of Page C will be 3, and "Previous Page" of Page C will be Page B, but without "Activity Map Page" recorded?)

Or what's the right way to understand the source traffic mix% of a page?

Please help to advise.

Thank you.

H

[#2 · Accepted solution]

There are a few special case to be aware of when you use the breakdown as shown in your screenshots:

1) ActivityMap does not always work. there are some cases where a click can't be detected (due to fancy javascript and not having a proper a-tag)

2) ActivityMap adds data to the next possible server call. if you have an event tracking call (eg. you track a special action like teaser slider), the information will be on the link track and not on the next page view. therefore the information are missing on the next pageview (since already sent)

3) the last example where a user came back from google in the middle of a visit is correct. since user has not clicked on your page, there is no activity map info. but there might be information about the last page as you mentioned

[#3]

Hello ursboller, your answer is clear enough, appreciate it!