Visitor Count Discrepancy in Adobe Target A/B Test

[Bruno_B]

Hi everyone,

I’m running an A/B test in Adobe Target where the only tracking logic is a simple view metric that fires as soon as the experience loads. There are no additional conditions, no click events, and no filtering on my side.

However, Target is reporting a visitor count that is more than 1,000 users lower than expected (e.g., 8,674 visitors but only ~7,215 event views). Since the metric fires immediately when the experience is applied, I would expect the number of tracked events to match the number of visitors almost exactly.Why is Adobe Target reporting significantly fewer “visitors with event” than the total number of visitors, even though the metric fires automatically at experience load?

Is there any known delay, qualification rule, client-side condition, or limitation in Target that could cause this mismatch, even with a simple "experience loaded" event?

Any insights or similar cases would be very helpful. Thanks!

[Karuppiah_Sakthivel · Accepted solution]

Hi Bruno,

Yes, this is expected behavior in Adobe Target.

In Target, “Visitors” and “Visitors with event (conversion)” are calculated differently. A visitor is counted once they qualify for the activity, but a success metric is counted only if the metric event is successfully recorded according to the metric rules.

Even if your metric fires on experience load, it’s normal to see fewer “visitors with event” due to:

1. Page load interruptions before the metric call completes
2. Network or browser issues
3. Ad blockers / privacy settings
4. Target metric execution timing
5. Success metric counting rules

Adobe explicitly documents that success metrics are not guaranteed to match visitor counts 1:1
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/target/using/activities/success-metrics/success-metrics 
To minimize the mismatch:
Use an impression-based success metric
If your goal is simply to confirm the experience loaded, configure the metric as:
After a user encounters this goal metric → On every impression (or excluding page refreshes)
Let me know if you need further assistance.

[Bruno_B]

Thank you for the clear explanation!
That makes perfect sense, and the details about how Target counts visitors vs. success metrics were very helpful.
I appreciate the guidance on minimizing the mismatch as well. Thanks again!