WebTrends dimensions: Visit dimensions versus hit dimensions and how they (don’t always) work together
There are unwritten rules about how dimensions can be combined in 2-D reports. Well, the rules are not exactly unwritten. I think they’re somewhere in the documentation. But here, in the WebTrends Outsider, they are in plain language. The rules have to do with the incredibly important distinctions between hit dimensions and visit dimensions.
Rule 1:
In two-dimension custom reports, the first dimension must be broader than the second.
Visit is broader than hit. Hit is finer-grained than visit.
So you can use these combinations of Primary > Secondary dimensions in a custom report:
Visit > Visit
Visit > Hit
Hit > Hit
And you must NEVER use this combo:
Hit > Visit
For the latter, you will get a report with results, but it will freeze your soul if you look at it too closely, and astute consumers of your data will laugh at you, or worse.
Rule 2:
For Hit-Hit 2D reports, both events must happen in the same hit!
Of course, Rule 1 begs the question of what is a hit-based dimension and what is a visit-based dimension. It’s not always intuitive and it’s definitely not in the UI or as far as I can tell in the documentation. Here’s the correct list for all the currently available Dimension choices and how WebTrends categorizes them. Pay attention, because you’d probably guess wrong on some.
Hit Dimensions:
- browser
browser version
content group
cookie parameter
day of week
directory
download
extension
hour of day
pages
query parameter
any custom drilldown
query parameter (when collected on “all hits” or “hits that match xxx”)
query string (when collected on “all hits” or “hits that match xxx”)
referrer (labeled “per hit”)
return code
server
time period
url
url with parameters
Visit-based Dimensions
- ad campaign
agent
area code
authenticated username
city
country
dma
domain name
duration
entry page
entry request
exit page
geography drilldown
MSA
network
network type
new vs returning
organization
page views
platform
PMSA
query parameter (when collected on “first hit,” “last hit,” or “most recent”)
query string (when collected on “first hit,” “last hit,” or “most recent”)
referring page (the one labeled “initial per visit”)
referring site
referring top level domain
search engine
search keywords
search phrase
state
throughput
time zone
top level domain
visitor
visitor segment (WT.seg and WT.vhseg)
5 comments
This is great data to keep in mind when creating custom reports in WebTrends. I am having some trouble getting measures like revenue and orders to show on custom query parameters. I changed the dimension data collection from “All Hits” to “Most Recent”. Now I am able to see the revenue and orders measure from the report. However I don’t think it is working for a custom drilldown. I have 3 custom tags with dimensions being collected as “Most Recent” in a custom drilldown. However the revenue and orders is still not showing. What other options should I look at to get the report to work?
I figured out it doesn’t matter whether the dimension is in a drilldown or not. The query parameter as a visit dimension will work.
Now I am interested in doing something more complex. I am looking for WebTrends to use a custom query parameter as a visitor dimension based on the session or cookie’s seesion id. How do you set this up?
I noticed in this explanation of dimensions, you use visit based dimensions and hit based dimensions. What are the visitor based dimensions WebTrends can use?
How is it possible to have higher visits than the number of views? any logical explanation?
Or does this mean there is a bug in webtrends 7.0?
It’s very possible, and it’s not a bug. But the explanation depends on what report you are looking at. It happens usually with people who are analyzing server log files, not SDC logs (javascript data collection). It usually happens when your visitors are hitting files that are not defined as pages – they are downloads (pdf’s etc which are treated differently from pages) or other kinds of files like .wmv, .css, .js, .swf, .txt, .ico, and many others. WebTrends sees the activity, calls it a visit, but doesn’t see any page views. There are many possible reasons for this happening, and the most common is that some other site is linking to one of your pdfs or movies directly, without activating the wrapper page on your site.
If this doesn’t fit your situation, make more comments and give more detail, okay?
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