The Visits metric is used to understand how many users performed a particular action over a period of time, such as coming to the website, logging into their account, or looking at a Home and Garden product. Adobe uses Cookies to tie a group of actions together to an individual user.
The Adobe technical definition of a visit is;
“A sequence of page views in a sitting”
To think of it in a less technical and more real-world way, it’s similar to a footfall measure in a physical store.
For example, if over one week you went to an Argos store on Monday morning, Wednesday morning and Wednesday evening, then over the week you would have made 3 visits.
In a physical environment it’s fairly straightforward to determine footfall, but how do you define when an online visit should end and a new one begin? Adobe Analytics uses the below criteria;
- 30 minutes of inactivity. If a user has been inactive for 30 minutes, their visit will end. If the user returns or becomes active again a new visit will start. This is the most common way for a visit to end and is considered an industry standard measure.
- 12 hours of continuous activity. If a user is active for a consecutive 12 hours (i.e. there are no periods of inactivity that last longer than 30 minutes in a 12 hour period), then a new visit will automatically begin.
- 2,500 hits generated. Once a user gets to this number of hits, a new visit will automatically begin.
- 100 hits in 100 seconds. If 100 hits occur in fewer than 100 seconds in a visit, then that visit automatically ends. This is because this behaviour would indicate bot activity which is intensive to process and increases the time it takes to generate reports.
FAQ’s / Scenarios to consider
Q: Does closing my tab or browser end the visit?
A: If you closed your tab or browser, but then re-opened and navigated back to the site within 30 minutes, it would be a continuation of the same visit. If you returned after 30 minutes, then a new visit would begin. Even shutting down and re-starting your computer or device would not terminate the visit if you return within 30 minutes.
However, if you start on Chrome, shut the browser down and then re-open the site in a different browser such as Firefox within 30 minutes, you would begin a new visit. This is because different browsers do not reference the same cookies.
Q: Does a visit persist over different devices or channels?
A: No. Moving over to a different computer or switching to your tablet or smartphone will start a new visit.
We also cannot track a user across channels even if they are accessed from the same device. So for example if you access the website on your phone, and then open the app on your phone, you will count as two visits on two different channels.
Q: Does opening multiple tabs create multiple visits?
A: Opening multiple tabs in one browser does not increment visits, as the tabs all reference the same cookies. Opening a tab in a different browser (e.g. Chrome vs Firefox) will start a new visit as separate browsers do not reference the same cookies.
Q: Why is the sum of visits greater than total visits?
A: Be careful when summing visits in a report, particularly when that report is a breakdown of something else. For example, if you summed visits to individual furniture categories, the total would be greater than overall visits to Furniture. This is because a customer may have visited the beds, sofas and wardrobes category in one visit. In a report each of these categories would receive one visit each, while Furniture at total level would only receive one visit.
It’s always best to get visits at as high a level as possible rather than summing individual elements in a breakdown, as you don’t know where there may be overlap from customers interacting with multiple elements in that breakdown.
This is also true with date ranges. If you run visits by day for a week and then sum up the individual days, you will get a higher number than if you run visits for the whole week aggregated. This is because a visit is reported in each time period in which activity occurred. For example, a visit begins at 11:45 p.m. on 1st December, and continues until 12:30 a.m. on 2nd December. In a daily breakdown the visit is counted against both 1st and 2nd December. In a report broken down by week, however, the visit will only be counted once.
