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jelleno11
Level 2
November 15, 2022
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Scroll depth metric and unique visitors

  • November 15, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 4848 views

Hi there, What is the best way to estimate the number of unique visitors who saw 50% of a page? Are there any gotchas in extrapolating out from page views to visits to unique visitors and creating a calculation? I would welcome a recommended approach. Thank you!

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Best answer by Jennifer_Dungan

Scroll depth tracking is a whole can of worms... more so when dealing with Adobe which is not a heartbeat tracking system (and while yes, you can make it do that, but you will blow you budget of server calls, so I don't recommend doing that 😛 )

 

Now, that said, Adobe does have a plugin you can add called "getPercentPageViewed" (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/implementation/vars/plugins/getpercentpageviewed.html?lang=en), and basically it will record the different scroll depth info from the previous page (final %, highest % reached, initial %, etc). So if the user closes the browser, or types a new URL into their browser and navigates away from the site without triggering a new tracking call, those pages will be missing data.

 

Now, of course, you also have to pay attention to the device/screen width... as some content will appear differently or more condensed on a mobile phone (or stacked a lot higher on a mobile phone) then would be displayed on a desktop device... so 50% on a phone will be a very different position than 50% on a tablet and very different again from 50% on a large monitor..... 

 

 

So for basic info, this will probably work for you.

2 replies

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe ChampionAccepted solution
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
November 15, 2022

Scroll depth tracking is a whole can of worms... more so when dealing with Adobe which is not a heartbeat tracking system (and while yes, you can make it do that, but you will blow you budget of server calls, so I don't recommend doing that 😛 )

 

Now, that said, Adobe does have a plugin you can add called "getPercentPageViewed" (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/implementation/vars/plugins/getpercentpageviewed.html?lang=en), and basically it will record the different scroll depth info from the previous page (final %, highest % reached, initial %, etc). So if the user closes the browser, or types a new URL into their browser and navigates away from the site without triggering a new tracking call, those pages will be missing data.

 

Now, of course, you also have to pay attention to the device/screen width... as some content will appear differently or more condensed on a mobile phone (or stacked a lot higher on a mobile phone) then would be displayed on a desktop device... so 50% on a phone will be a very different position than 50% on a tablet and very different again from 50% on a large monitor..... 

 

 

So for basic info, this will probably work for you.

    Jennifer_Dungan
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    November 15, 2022

    Sorry, as for classifying the data.. by UV is tricky, since most users will fall into multiple bucks of %... so making sure that you can properly represent those users (without massive cross-over is tricky)

     

    The first thing I would do would be to track the Max %, then create a classification rule on this to get "under 50%" and "50% plus", at least as a start....

     

    Now, I would create visitor level segments based on this data, but, I would make sure to "timebox" the segment to say something like 7 days, or 30 days, or something that makes sense (as "visitor" will be all time without specifying a data range)... and in these segments to try and combat the visitor cross over, I would create something that looks for

     

    (the under 50%)

    VISITOR:

    "under 50%" 

    AND

    exclude ["50% plus"]

    AND

    Last 30 full Days

     

    (basically, only show users who NEVER scrolled more than 50% in the last 30 full days)

     

    then create one for (over 50%)

    VISITOR:

    "under 50%" 

    AND

    Last 30 full Days

     

    so the over 50% will include users who hit pages that scrolled beyond 50%, but also any pages that didn't (basically these users at some point scrolled over 50% - maybe not all of the time, but they did)

     

     

    This should prevent all the user cross over....

      MattCoen
      MattCoen
      Level 2
      November 15, 2022

      I use 3 event variables. One for 25%, 50%, and 75% scroll.

      I only fire the additional scroll calls on templates where the scroll really matters. As Jen mentioned, you will increase your server call volume.

       

      I then created calculated metrics for scroll rates and use 50% scroll rate as a content KPI (50% scrolls/page views).  I would not use Unique Visitors as that could cross visits.

      You do need to take into consideration that the page size is a factor and 50% is not the same number of pixels on all pages.

       

       

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