Low-traffic value in Adobe Analytics

Last update: October 16, 2024

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When a report has many unique values, Adobe provides functionality to ensure that the most important values appear in your report. Unique variable values collected beyond a certain threshold (see below) are listed under a dimension item labeled Low-Traffic.

How Low-Traffic works

  • Adobe Analytics uses two thresholds to determine which unique values are displayed in reports each month: A low threshold and a high threshold. These thresholds can be adjusted by Adobe from time to time. The current threshold limits are:

    • Low threshold: 2,000,000 unique values during the month.
    • High threshold: 2,100,000 unique values during the month.

  • Reporting is not affected if a variable does not reach the low threshold in a given month.

  • When a variable reaches the low threshold, data begins to be bucketed under a dimension item labeled Low-Traffic. Each value beyond this threshold goes through the following logic:

    • If a value is already seen in reports, add to that value as usual.
    • If a value is not yet seen in reports, initially add it to the Low-Traffic dimension item.
    • If a value that is bucketed under Low-Traffic receives an influx of traffic (typically instances in the double digits in a single day), recognize it as its own dimension item. Instances collected before the influx of traffic remain under Low-Traffic. The exact point at which the dimension item begins showing up in reports has many dependencies, such as the number of servers processing data for the report suite and the amount of time between each dimension item instance.

  • If a variable reaches the high threshold, more aggressive filtering is applied. Unique values require instances in the triple digits in a single day before being recognized as its own dimension item.

This logic allows Adobe to optimize reporting capabilities while still allowing your organization to report on crucial dimension items collected later in the month. For example, if your organization runs a site with millions of articles and a new article becomes popular towards the end of the month (after exceeding both unique thresholds), you can still analyze the performance of that article without it being bucketed under Low-Traffic. This logic is not intended to un-bucket everything that gets a certain number of page views per day or per month.

NOTE
The Page dimension uses several backend columns that all count towards unique thresholds, including pagename, page_url, first_hit_pagename, first_hit_page_url, visit_pagename, visit_page_url, and click_context. These backend columns can cause Low-Traffic logic to apply well before the number of unique Page dimension items in Workspace reaches the low threshold.

Note that low-traffic logic works best with variables that have dimension items that recur many times during the month. If a variable’s dimension items are nearly or entirely unique on every hit, the variable’s number of unique values reaches both thresholds quickly and all subsequent dimension items for the month end up in the low-traffic bucket.

Changing unique limit thresholds

Threshold limits can sometimes be changed on a per-variable basis. Contact Adobe Customer Care or your Adobe Account Team to request this change. The extent to which the thresholds can be increased depends on multiple factors and Adobe may not be able to accommodate threshold increases in all cases. When requesting a change, include:

  • The report suite ID
  • The variable you would like to increase the threshold for
  • Both the first and second threshold desired

Changes to thresholds can impact report performance. Adobe highly recommends using good judgment when requesting an increase to unique values in a variable. Only increase unique limits for variables that are critical to your organization’s reporting needs.

Low-traffic thresholds are not visible in the Analytics UI. Contact Adobe Customer Care if you would like more information on existing thresholds.

Low-traffic using components and other capabilities

Different capabilities treat low-traffic values in different ways.

  • Data Warehouse: There is no limit to the number of unique values in Data Warehouse reports. Its unique architecture allows the reporting of any number of unique values.

    • In some limited scenarios, low-traffic values can still appear. Examples include list vars, list props, merchandising eVars, and marketing channel detail dimensions.

  • Segmentation: If the segment criteria includes a variable with a high number of unique values, values captured under low-traffic are not included.

  • Classifications: Classification reports are also subject to unique limits. If a classification’s parent variable value is included under low-traffic, the value is not classified.

    • Low-traffic classification values obtained through the importer can be viewed in Data Warehouse.
    • Low-traffic classification values obtained through the rule builder cannot be viewed in Data Warehouse.