Why don't Line Item Page Level Web Metrics (ie unique visitors and visits) do not tie out to the Site Totals?

[#1]

Problem Statement:

For unique visitors and visits in page level view, we need to total all the pages, but when we export the line item detail for unique visitors and visits, this total does not tie out to the Adobe Analytics calculated total. Adobe Analytics remove the duplicates of these metrics, but we do not know how it is being calculated.

We need to know if there is a formula that calculates in the background when providing the summarized total of unique visitors and visits in Adobe Analytics?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

i don't think that there is any formula you can use to calculate the "total" based on the "row numbers". the result is called "de-dublicated" but in fact it is a calculation on the raw data.

just an example: assume you have 3 pages and you registered a total of 3 visits. but have a look at the following cases:

a) each visit just visited 1 page, the table looks like

    page 1: 1 visit

    page 2: 1 visit

    page 3: 1 visit

b) each visit visited all 3 pages, now your table

    page 1: 3 visits

    page 2: 3 visits

    page 3: 3 visits

both cases sum up with a total of 3 visits. without nowing the raw data you do not have any chance to calculate the (de-dublicated) total.

your only chance is having a look at raw data and make the calculation yourself. read here about identifying unique visitors, visits is somewhere nearby: Identifying Visitors

[#3]

Urs is 100% correct. There's no magic formula that will let you sum line items - they are simply being deduplicated.

This article has a lot of helpful information on how it cannot be magically calculated: Compare sum of line items to report total