understanding the difference between total numbers and row numbers

[kr8tive]

hello

I made a segment that looks for visits that go to the buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click).

For a table I put the segment I made with visit metric and put evar in rows.

The total number was 35.

There were different values of evar from different pages. Then when I looked at the evar value that I put for my segment, it was only 18. I know that total is the result of de-duplicated values and values from seg contain duplicates.

What I don’t understand is that I understood 35 is the number of visits that exactly followed the sequence that I made for seg. So when I looked at evar as dimension, I thought the evar with the value I put in the seg also should be 35 or more if there are duplicates.

So I tried to check the number by putting the visitor id for dimension with the metric in the same condition. Then I tried to break it down with the visit number, then with the evar. There were cases where the visit number contained the evar I set for the seg. But there were also cases that didn’t have the certain value of evar I put in the segment but still counted as the case.

I assume the value from each row is the number of visits that contributed to Evar which is from the sequence I made.

since I made a seg with the sequence that contained a certain evar at the end, why is the evar I put in the seg only 18 when I put it in rows compared to the total 35.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

What date range is your report?

The segment preview looks at "Last 90 Days"... whereas your panel / project may be limited to "This Month" or "Last Month" resulting in a smaller number due to the reduced time scope?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Or do you mean the total at the top is showing 35, but you only have numbers that add up to 18 in the rows?

If you could share some visuals of what you are seeing (you can obscure sensitive areas, or send it as a private message if you feel more comfortable with that.).. I think that would help us to understand your issue better.

[kr8tive]

	Visits
	Buy Page Visit > Check out page > evar 1
	Site Code: somewhere (eVar)
evar 1 total	35
Unspecified	24
evar 1 = login blah blah	18
evar 1 = extra 1	15
evar 1 = extra 2	13
evar 1 = extra 3	11

maybe this might help to understand what I meant.

evar 1 is about collecting interactions that happen in account-related pages

for Buy Page Visit > Check out page > Evar 1

it is a segment with a visit bucket and I specified evar 1 as login blah blah (evar 1 equals login blah blah) so it only collects the call I want.

when I look at the numbers of different values of evar 1 evar 1 = login is only 18 and the total says the # of visits that included my seg sequence is 35. what about the other 17? how should I understand this? I am guessing that I am not following the concept of visits that are used in seg and the number of values that are from breaking down evar 1.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Ok, 

So your Segment is something like this:

Visit level, Specific Page, then Specific Page, then eVar1 exists (Not looking for a specific value)?

And now you see a distribution of eVar1 like "login", "extra 1", "extra 2", etc? 

So first off, when you are looking at a Visit level segment, every hit in that segment will appear, just so long as the sequence was met during the visit.

Now, if you didn't specify the value of the eVar to be "login", then anyone who completed the first 2 pages, then hit any eVar1 would be included... 

And when you show the data the way you have above, you noticed that if you add 24 + 18 + 15 + 13 + 11, etc, it's much more than 35....

This is because some of those other eVars will be in the same visit as "extra 1" or "extra 2"...  it will be hard to identify those in isolation of your "login" with just that segment...  you would have to have a separate segment that excludes the path to login to see what is happening in the 17 other visits...

I hope that makes sense.. Visits is hard to explain sometimes.

[kr8tive]

you are almost right except I did not put evar1 exists, instead I put evar1 equals login.xxxx (the call name collected when evar 1 happens on a specific page). I just called it login in order to hide sensitive parts. 

as you know the total # of the sequence was 35 so I thought 35 visits contributed to the segment I made. Since the segment is a visit bucket and not a visitor, I thought 35 meant there are 35 cases that evar1 = login.xxxx was called. but when I looked into evar1, the login.xxxx was only 18. I was confused because the value of login.xxxx was smaller than 35. I can't think of any example that can explain this case. I am aware that the sum of values of evar1 can exceed the total because the total only reports de duplicated values.

Personally, I am having a hard time understanding the logic of visits when it is used in segments and seen with Evar as dimensions. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Yes, that is odd... Do you have any containers in your segment?? One thing to be aware of is that containers within a segment have their own scope... it's possible that the way the segment has been built could be leading to some unintended logic... Would it be possible to share a screenshot of your actual segment (hiding sensitive info as needed)?

The other thing is, what date range are you looking at in your report? Is it possible that the Visit may have the path you have specified, but that the last part (i.e. the Login page) was hit on a subsequent calendar day?

For instance, if I start my journey at 11:55 pm July 31st... I hit the "Buy Page" at 11:57 pm, I hit the "Check Out Page" at 11:59 pm, then I finally hit the Login Page at 12:01 am Aug 1st...

If you are only looking at July, the visit did contain the full path, but the Login Page was hit in Aug outside the scope of your report?

[kr8tive]

yes, there are many 'hit' containers because I have to deal with sites that are from different countries. There are three main containers which are buy page visit, check out page, evar 1. first two consist of dozens of page, url, and page name dimensions in different containers with operators(or, and, then) in order to specify the exact page and exclude other cases. evar 1 is also expressed with a container that consists of 'evar 1 = login.xxx', 'event 1 exists', excludes pages with the 'and' operator.

I also want to share the actual segment but it is full of sensitive parts and I might have to attach more than 10 screenshots to show the whole segment...  the date range is from July 26 to August 10.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

OK.. Hit containers inside shouldn't be a problem.. it's more when you try to add something with a longer potential attribution inside that things can get wonky...

But it's possible that if your segment is that complex it could have some logic issue that is causing some oddities in the results...

Try creating a second segment (just to test out)... start with simple behaviour and see what shows up.. then add a little extra logic, test it again.. add a little more, test... etc

Basically try to build from the ground up testing at each step to make sure that something strange hasn't been built into the logic that is causing issues.

[kr8tive]

thanks, I will try that. this is a different question but related to the segment I mentioned above. 

so I made two segments that go like this

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click)ㅇ->(then) order

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click) X(exclude)->(then) order

then I realized the value of

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) order

and

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click) X(exclude)->(then) order

is equal.

If I want the value of the sequence without Evar happening, do I have to subtract the value of

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click)ㅇ->(then) order

from 

buy page ->(then) checkout page ->(then) evar(button click) X(exclude)->(then) order

in order to find out what I truly want?