Visit Total Column Not Adding Up Right...?

[katrina_plucker]

What's the reason for my "Visits" column in my dashboard providing a total at the bottom of the screen that is completely different than in comparison to when I download the information and add it up in Excel?  The first few line items of "Visits" counts you can tell just by looking at it that it's already adding up to more than the total provided at the bottom.  Is this normal when calculating visits?

[ecarpe15]

The total line is a duped version of visits. A good example is if your at visits by page..I visit 4 pages in my visit. 

Page A - 1

Page B - 1

Page C - 1

Page D - 1

Total Visits = 1 

Sum of Visits when summed in excel would equal 4

[brian_au · Accepted solution]

It depends on the report, but in some cases the sum of the line items will not match the shown bottom of screen total. In the case you describe it is likely that the dimension in question increments visits per each line item, but the overall total at the bottom is the site visits total in the period (you can compare against the standard site visits report to confirm).

Help Reference Link:

https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/kb/en_US/analytics/kb/sum-line-items-different-from-total...

Many reports in Adobe Analytics show individual line items with their totals at the bottom. Users sometimes sum the individual line items in attempt to validate their data by comparing it with the total of the report. Adobe does not recommend that you use this method, as there are several factors that contribute to their differences.

Best,

Brian

[katrina_plucker]

Thanks for the reply!  But, I guess I'm still confused...I understand the fact that it is providing "visit" totals at the right for each line item (or in this total "visits" for specific pages over the period of three months).  Although, I get lost trying to think about how that correlates to the total shown at the bottom of the screen that is under the page visit totals given per each line.  Is that total just not useful and not a true total of the data provided?

[brian_au]

Yes in the context of the pages report the bottom visits bold 'TOTAL' is for the entire site within the period (If you pull a Visits report for the same period for the entire site it should match exactly). The reason being it would not make sense to add up the Page visits line items as one visits total as that would misrepresent a figure beyond the overall site total. Also the inclusion of the overall site total is to provide reference as the share % for each page line item are taken as a % of the overall site total. 

So the pages report composition is setup as such:

Pages Visits (For that given page within the time range how many visits did it receive), Pages % (Page Visits DIVIDED BY Overall Site Visits),

Bottom Pages Visits Total (Overall Site Visits= For the entire site within the time range how many visits occurred)

Best,

Brian

[katrina_plucker]

Ok, I understand the mathematics and the reasoning for how the visits are counted and glad I'm clarified on the fact that the bottom total is for the website.  But now I'm trying to make sense of the percentages that are provided.  For example, some pages have such high percentages, but it just doesn't make any sense how this page receives 75% of the total site traffic.  And then the pages listed below can have something like 15%, 22%, etc...  That's just not making sense to me to say that high of percentages for certain pages are representing the amount of traffic out of the entire site traffic...is it?

Thanks!

Katrina

[brian_au]

The pages %s will make sense if you understand how they are derived and how the visits metric manifests within the Pages report. The Pages % are reflective of share of Page Visits DIVIDED BY Overall Site Visits. Therefore the 75% case example means that for the overall site visits within the period, 75% of those total visits touched that exact page over the course of those visits at least once. Remember that over the course of a given single visit within the context of the pages report each page will increment a visit count for the purposes of that reporting view.

To continue Eric's example where a single visit traversed 4 pages (A,B,C,D), therefore the % share for each page would be 100% since there was only 1 overall site visit (1 DIVIDED BY 1=100% for each Page line item).

Page A - 1 Visit (100%)

Page B - 1 Visit (100%)

Page C - 1 Visit (100%)

Page D - 1 Visit (100%)

Total Site Visit(s) = 1 

However if we change the site visits total to 2 visits that changes, the %s accordingly (For Line items A,B,C: 1 DIVIDED BY 2=50% for each Page line item OR For Line item D: 2 DIVIDED BY 2=100% for the Page line item ). 

Visit #1: Visit traversed 4 pages (A,B,C,D)

Visit #2: Visit traversed 1 page only (D)

The results of the pages report will then be as follows:

Page A - 1 Visit (50%)

Page B - 1 Visit (50%)

Page C - 1 Visit (50%)

Page D - 2 Visits (100%)

Total Site Visits = 2

Best,

Brian