Adobe® Experience Cloud

Audience Analytics

Contents

Audience Manager Audiences in Analytics...........................................................3

Audience Analytics Workflow.................................................................................5

Turn on Server-Side Forwarding.............................................................................................5

Requirements for Server-Side Forwarding.................................................................................................7

How to Verify Your Server-Side Forwarding Implementation......................................................................7

Server-Side Forwarding Data and Code Reference...................................................................................8

Server-Side Forwarding FAQ...................................................................................................................12

Use the Audience Data in Analytics......................................................................................13

Use Cases...............................................................................................................18

Frequently Asked Questions................................................................................19

Visitor Count Differences.......................................................................................................22

Understanding Segments in Analytics and Audience Manager............................................23

Contact and Legal Information.............................................................................25

Audience AnalyticsLast updated 3/7/2018

Audience AnalyticsAdobe Audience Manager (AAM) is a powerful data management platform that helps you build unique audienceprofiles from first-party, second-party/partner, and third-party data integrations. For advertisers, these audienceprofiles help define the most valuable segments to use across any digital channel.

With the Audience Analytics integration in place, you can incorporate AAM audience data such as demographicinformation (e.g. gender or income level), psychographic information (e.g. interests and hobbies), CRM data, andad impression data into any Analytics workflow.

• Key Benefits• How it Works• Prerequisites

Key Benefits

The Audience Analytics integration features the following key benefits:

• It is the first productized integration between a Data Management Platform (DMP) and an analytics engine in themarketplace.

• Segments are shared from AAM to Analytics in real time, to inform audience discovery, segmentation, andoptimization.

• All AAM segments are shared by default, fully enriching customer profiles in Analytics.• Solution admins can enable the integration through the user interface, with minimal code changes required.• Only segments that adhere to Audience Manager data export controls are shared.

How it Works

1. Each time a visitor comes to your digital properties, hits are collected and sent to Analytics.2. With server-side forwarding, each hit that Analytics receives is automatically sent to AAM in real time.3. Through the Audience Analytics integration, for each hit, a visitor’s audience membership is looked up in AAM

and a list of segment IDs is returned to Analytics for processing in real time.

3Audience Analytics

Because AAM segments are inserted on a same-hit basis, you can be sure that whatever data is available in AAMabout a visitor will not be missed and be up to date for that hit. This is superior to an AppMeasurement plug-in,because a plug-in can make those segments available only on the next hit (rather than the current hit.)

In addition, we automatically classify the AAM segment IDs to their friendly names for you, so that you won’t haveto look at alpha-numeric IDs in Analytics reports.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the following prerequisites are in place:

• You are a customer of both Audience Manager and Adobe Analytics.• You are an Audience Manager admin.• You are using the Experience Cloud ID Service v1.5 or later.• AAM and Adobe Analytics report suites are mapped to the same Experience Cloud organization.• You use server-side forwarding and have implemented the Audience Management module (no DIL code) -

AppMeasurement 1.5 or later.

These prerequisites are described in the Audience Analytics Workflow.

4Audience Analytics

Audience Analytics WorkflowHow to provision, share, and use the audience data.

NotesTask DescriptionStep #

See Server-Side Forwarding.Turn on server-side forwarding.

See Configure Analytics destination.Configure Analytics destination in AAM.

You can use the new AAM Audience dimensions in AnalysisWorkspace and its related features (Segment Comparison,Flow, Venn, etc).

Use the data in Analytics.

The Audience dimension is also available in Reports &Analytics, Ad Hoc Analysis, Report Builder, Data Warehouseand Data Feeds.

Note: Data Feeds includes only the Audience ID, notthe Audience Name.

Turn on Server-Side Forwarding

Server-side forwarding is designed for customers who want to share data from Analytics to other Experience CloudSolutions in real time. When enabled, server-side forwarding also allows Analytics to push data to other ExperienceCloud solutions and for those solutions to push data to Analytics during the data collection process.

Server-side forwarding improves upon data collection because it:

• Reduces calls from the page. With server-side forwarding, Audience Manager customers no longer need to useDIL for data collection because it is being forwarded from Analytics. Removing DIL means eliminating a "/event" call.Fewer calls helps improve page load times, which makes for a better customer experience on your site.

• Lets you take advantage of data sharing among Experience Cloud solutions.• Conforms with our best practices for Audience Manager code implementation and deployment.

Tip: Current Audience Manager customers who use Analytics should migrate to server-side forwarding. NewAdobe Analytics and Audience Manager customers should implement server-side forwarding (instead of DIL)as the default data collection and transfer method.

To understand where your organization is in terms of implementing server-side forwarding, go through these validationsteps:

5Audience Analytics Workflow

NotesTask DescriptionStep #

On the Request tab, verify that a MID value is being set. This tells youthat Experience Cloud ID service is implemented correctly, which is apre-requisite for server-side forwarding.

Verify whether ExperienceCloud ID (MID)service isimplemented, by inspectingthe Analytics tracking request. • If you see a MID value, continue to step 2.

• If you do not see a MID value, implement Experience Cloud ID Servicebefore proceeding to step 2.

In the “Response” tab, check that the response contains AudienceManager data. If you see:

Verify whether you alreadyhave a version of server-sideforwarding implemented, by • A JSON response from Audience Manager that includes items such

as “postbacks” or “dcs_region”: you have some form of server-sideforwarding already enabled. Continue to step 3.

inspecting the Analyticstracking request.

• The “status":"SUCCESS”: you have the Audience Management Moduleimplemented, but do not have server side forwarding properly configured.Continue to step 3.

• A 2 x 2 image: you do not have server-side forwarding or the AudienceManagement Module implemented. To correct this:

• AAM Customers with DIL: coordinate the following 2 items in closeconjunction:

1. Remove the DIL code and install the Audience Management Modulepage code.

2. Enable server-side forwarding in the Analytics Admin UI as describedin step 3. Enabling this setting before removing DIL code willduplicate data and create additional billed server calls to AudienceManager.

• New AAM customers - install the Audience Management Module pagecode and continue to step 3. Data will not be sent to Audience Manageruntil server-side forwarding is turned on in step 3.

Server-side forwarding at the report-suite level is recommended over thelegacy tracking server approach because you can control at a finer level

Verify whether you haveserver-side forwarding

what data gets shared from Analytics. It is also a pre-requisite for thisAudience Analytics integration.

implemented at thereport-suite level, rather thanthe legacy tracking serverapproach.

Go to Analytics > Admin > Report Suites > (select report suites) >Edit Settings > General > Server Side Forwarding. If the checkbox is:

• Inactive (You are unable to make a selection or the menu does notexist): you do not have the selected report suites mapped to your IMSOrg. Make sure that your applicable report suites are mapped to theproper IMS Org using the Report Suite Mapping UI.

• Disabled:You do not have the new server-side forwarding turned on.Read the content on the page and then proceed with enabling the feature.

• Enabled:You are provisioned for new server-side forwarding.You arealso able to set up this Audience Analytics integration.

6Audience Analytics Workflow

Note: Data will not appear in other Experience Cloud solutions, such as Audience Manager or Profiles andAudiences, until all 3 steps are complete. Once enabled, it will take several hours for these settings to takeeffect.

Requirements for Server-Side Forwarding

You must meet these Experience Cloud solution, service, and code requirements to implement server-side forwarding.These requirements also include instructions on how to check for code versions and where to get the latest codelibraries.

DescriptionRequirement Type

Server-side forwarding works with Analytics and Audience Manager and/or Profiles andAudiences.

Solution Requirements

Server-side forwarding requires the Experience Cloud ID service. The Experience CloudID service provides a universal ID that identifies site visitors across all the solutions in the

Service Requirements

Experience Cloud.You need to implement the ID service before server-side forwardingwill work.

Server-side forwarding requires version 1.5 (or newer) of the code libraries listed below.As a best practice, we recommending using the latest versions rather than these requiredminimums.

Code Versions

• AppMeasurement.js

• AppMeasurement_Module_AudienceManagement.js

• VistorAPI.js

Determine Your Code Library Version

Any tool that monitors the HTTP requests made by a browser can show you the versionnumber for your AppMeasurement and Visitor API code. TheAppMeasurement_Module_AudienceManagement.js does not contain or return a versionID. The following examples show you what the version IDs for look like forAppMeasurement.js and VisitorAPI.js code.

• AppMeasurement.js: The Adobe Debugger returns the AppMeasurement version likethis: Version of Code | JS-1.5.1. Other tools may use a different label, but the valuealways follows the pattern JS-X.X.X, where X is a version number.

• VisitorAPI.js: Look for the d_visid_ver parameter. It will show you the Visitor IDservice like this: d_visid_ver: 1.5.5.Visitor API code older than version 1.5.2 did notinclude a version number.You're probably using an older code library (and need toupgrade) if your monitoring results do not return a version number.

How to Verify Your Server-Side Forwarding Implementation

To verify that Server-side forwarding is properly enabled, you'll need to inspect the HTTP response from the Analyticstracking request.This can be done using a browser's developer tools or by using a proxying tool such as the Charles

7Audience Analytics Workflow

Web Debugger.The following instructions illustrate what indicators must be present to ensure server-side forwardingis properly enabled.

To check the status of server-side forwarding:

1. Load a test page that contains updated AppMeasurement code.

2. In your browser's debugging tools or using your proxy software, inspect the HTTP response from Analytics'tracking request (you can easily filter this by selecting any path containing "b/ss").

3. Inspect the HTTP response. If the response contains Audience Manager data (as illustrated below), then server-sideforwarding is working.

: If the response contains the key value pair "status":"SUCCESS" or a 2 x 2 image, then server-side forwardingis not configured correctly. Please ensure that the Experience Cloud ID Service is properly deployed, you've deployedthe App Measurement module, that the applicable report suite has been mapped to the correct IMS Org, and thatserver-side forwarding has been enabled in the Analytics Admin console.

Server-Side Forwarding Data and Code Reference

A comprehensive list and descriptions of the configuration variables, HTTP headers, and data signals in server-sideforwarding calls.

Contents:

Configuration Variables

HTTP Headers

Customer-Defined Signals

Configuration Variables

Parameters prefixed with d_ identify special, system-level key-value pairs used by our data collection servers (DCS).See also .

8Audience Analytics Workflow

DescriptionParameter

Set to the report suites passed in with the hit to Analytics.d_rs

Set d_dst=1 if the request to Analytics is expecting content about the destination to besent back to the client.

d_dst

The Experience Cloud Visitor ID passed in to Analytics. See Cookies and the ExperienceCloud ID Service.

d_mid

HTTP Headers

These headers are fields contain information like requests for data and responses in an HTTP call.

DescriptionHTTP Header

This is set to the client's specific data collection host name specified in the Analytics hostconfig file. It appears as host name.demdex.net.

Host

See .

Set to the User-Agent header passed in to Analytics.User-Agent

Only set if an alternate user agent was specified by one of these headers:X-Original-User-Agent

• X-Device-User-Agent\

• X-Original-User-Agent\

• X-OperaMini-Phone-UA\

• X-Skyfire-Phone\

• X-Bolt-Phone-UA\

Set to the IP address of the requesting client. Analytics will have already parsed theincoming X-Forwarded-For header and determined the correct IP address to use.

X-Forwarded-For

Set to the Accept-Language header passed in to Analytics.Accept-Language

Set to the page URL passed in to Analytics or gathered from the Referer header passedin to Analytics.

Referer

Customer-Defined Signals

Parameters prefixed with c_ identify customer-defined variables. See also .

DescriptionSignal

Browser window width and height.c_browserWidth andc_browserHeight

9Audience Analytics Workflow

DescriptionSignal

Set by s.campaign.c_campaign

Set by s.channel.c_channel

Timestamp formatted as dd/mm/yyy hh:mm:ss W TZ.c_clientDateTime

TZ is in minutes and matches the return of the Date.getTimezoneOffset method.

Specified as 16- or 32-bit color.c_colorDepth

Specifies connection type. Options include:c_connectionType

• modem

• lan

Examples:c_contextData.*

• AppMeasurement: s.contextData["category"] = "news";

• Signal: c_contextData.category=news

Specifies if cookies can be enabled. Options include:c_cookiesEnabled

• yes

• no

• unknown

Type of currency used for the transaction.c_currencyCode

Custom evarsc_evar#

Set by s.events.c_events

Custom hierarchy variables.c_hier#

Specifies if Java can be enabled. Options include:c_javaEnabled

• yes

• no

• unknown

Version of JavaScript supported by a browser.c_javaScriptVersion

Numeric latitudec_latitude

10Audience Analytics Workflow

DescriptionSignal

Options include:c_linkClick

• custom

• download

• exit

The custom name (if any) provided for the link.c_linkCustomName

The URL of download links.c_linkDownloadURL

The exit link URL.c_linkExitURL

Custom list variables.c_list#

Numeric longitude.c_longitude

For media stream tracking requests. Options include:c_mediaPlayerType

• other

• primetime

The page name (if set).c_pageName

The address of the page in the address bar of the browser.c_pageURL

The product string (set by s.products).c_products

Custom props.c_prop

A unique ID for the purchase.c_purchaseID

The page prior to the current page.c_referrer

Screen width and height (in pixels).c_screenResolution

Web server name (set by s.server).c_server

Geographic region (set by s.state).c_state

Time offset (in hours).c_timezone

A unique ID for a transaction.c_transactionID

11Audience Analytics Workflow

DescriptionSignal

Postal code (set by s.zip).c_zip

Server-Side Forwarding FAQ

Frequently asked questions about features, functionality, and issues related to server-side forwarding.

Contents:

Tracking Servers

Tagging and Reporting

Tracking Servers

AnswerQuestion

The legacy tracking server based server side forwarding method will continueto forward data from Analytics to Audience Manager, however if you wish to

Q: What if I'm currently using thelegacy, tracking server basedserver side forwarding? send Audience Manager segments into Analytics, the new report suite based

server side forwarding is required. Additionally, there is no harm in enablinga report suite for server side forwarding on top of your tracking serverconfiguration - the new report suite server-side forwarding setting will beused whenever there is a conflict.

We will continue to support the tracking server based server side forwardingfor the foreseeable future, however if you want to take advantage of the

Q: Should I migrate my legacytracking server based server side

integration from Audience Manager to Analytics (segment sharing toforwarding to the new report suitebased server side forwarding? Analytics), then you'll need to enable the new report suite based server side

forwarding for all applicable report suites.There is no urgent reason to disablethe legacy tracking server based server side forwarding however.

Tagging and Reporting

AnswerQuestion

No, a hit that is forwarded from Analytics to Audience Manager will only beforwarded once to Audience Manager regardless of the number of report

Q: What if I have multi-suitetagging on my site? Will

suites in the hit. If you have corresponding data sources in Audience Managerserver-side forwarding double myserver calls to Audience Manager? for each of the report suites in the hit, each will be populated appropriately

from that single hit.

Keep in mind however, that if you currently use client-side data collection(DIL) and you enable server-side forwarding without installing the AudienceManagement Module, you will double your server calls to Audience Managerregardless of the number of report suites you have in your Analytics hit.

12Audience Analytics Workflow

AnswerQuestion

You should never send data from a single Analytics hit to two report suitesthat belong to separate IMS Orgs, but if this does occur, we will only forward

Q:What if I have multi-suite taggedreport suites that are mapped toseparate IMS Orgs? the hit to the IMS Org matching the Experience Cloud ID Service setup on

the page.

We will forward the hit to the corresponding data collection server for theIMS Org on your mapped report suite, however since the non-mapped report

Q: What if I have multi-suitetagging and only one of my report

suite will not have an associated data source in Audience Manager, no datawill be recorded for the un-mapped report suite in Audience Manager.

suites is mapped to my IMS Organd the other is not?

Analytics will consider this report suite as unmapped and will not allow serverside forwarding to be enabled for this report suite. Contact customer care toresolve this mapping issue.

Q:What if I have a report suite thatis mapped to multiple IMS Orgs?

No, the response time will be the same.Q: Will the report suite basedserver side forwarding method beslower than the tracking serverbased server side forwarding?

No. If you need to share data collected under one IMS Org to another IMSOrg, we recommend sending any applicable audiences from one AudienceManager instance to another using the audience marketplace.

Q: What if we have two IMS Orgs(or AAM instances) and want toshare data between both IMSOrgs? Can I server side forward asingle Analytics hit to multiple IMSOrgs?

In Analytics, no additional billing will occur. In Audience Manager, forwardedhits are treated like any other hits and are billed.

Q: Will server-side forwardingresult in any additional billing inAudience Manager or Analytics?

This is why it is important not to have DIL and server-side forwarding enabledat the same time, which could cause double-billing as well as data duplication.

Use the Audience Data in Analytics

You can use the AAM Audience dimensions throughout Analytics. The integrated segments are new Analyticsdimensions called Audiences ID and Audiences Name, and can be used just like any other dimension that Analyticscollects. In Data Feeds, the Audience IDs are stored in the “mc_audiences” column. These dimensions are notcurrently available in Data Workbench or Livestream. Some examples of how the Audiences dimensions can beleveraged include:

• Analysis Workspace• Segment Comparison• Customer Journey (Flow) in Analysis Workspace• Venn Visualization in Analysis Workspace• Segment Builder

13Audience Analytics Workflow

• Reports & Analytics and Report Builder

Analysis Workspace

In Analysis Workspace, the AAM segments appear as two dimensions.

1. Go to Workspace.2. From the list of Dimensions, select the dimensions Audience ID or Audience Name. Name is a friendly

classification of the ID.

Segment Comparison

Segment Comparison discovers the most statistically significant differences between two segments. Audiences datacan be used in Segment Comparison in two ways: 1) as the 2 segments that are being compared, and 2) as itemsin the “Top Dimension Items” table.

1. Go to Workspace and select the Segment Comparison panel from the left rail.2. Search for Audiences Name in the Component menu.3. Open Audiences Name so that the related dimension items appear.4. Drag the audiences you want to compare into the Segment Comparison builder.5. (Optional):You can bring in other dimension items or segments as well, up to 2 can be compared.6. Click Build.

Audiences ID and Name dimensions will automatically appear in the “Top Dimension Items” table, as they areadditional profile data for the two segments being compared.

14Audience Analytics Workflow

Customer Journey (Flow) in Analysis Workspace

AAM segment data is passed into Analytics on a hit-by-hit basis, and represents the audience membership for avisitor at that point in time. This means, a visitor could fall into one segment (e.g. “Awareness”), then later qualifyfor a more qualified segment (e.g. “Consideration”).You can use Flow in Analysis Workspace to visualize the journeya visitor takes between audiences.

1. Go to Workspace and select the Flow visualization from the left rail.2. Drag the Audience Name dimension into the Flow builder.3. Click Build.4. (Optional): Drag any other dimension into the Flow visualization to create an inter-dimensional Flow.

15Audience Analytics Workflow

Audiences can also be used in Fallout visualizations.

Venn Visualization in Analysis Workspace

Venn visualizations show the overlap between up to 3 segments.

1. Go to Workspace and select the Venn visualization from the left rail.2. Search for Audience Name in the component menu.3. Open Audience Name so that the related dimension items appear.4. Drag the audiences that you want to compare into the Venn builder.5. (Optional):You can bring in other dimension items or segments as well; up to 3 can be compared.6. Click Build.

Segment Builder

You can incorporate the Audiences dimensions in the Analytics Segment Builder, along with the behavioral informationthat Analytics collects.

1. Go to Components > Segments.

16Audience Analytics Workflow

2. Click Add to create a new segment.3. After naming the segment, drag the Audience Name dimension into the Definitions panel.4. (Optional): Add other criteria to the segment.5. Save the segment.

Reports & Analytics and Report Builder

1. To view the Analytics report, go to Reports > Visitor Profile > Audience ID Reports.2. From this folder, you can access both the Audience ID and Audience Name dimensions.

17Audience Analytics Workflow

Use Cases

Ad Sales and Content Decisions

As a Media Publisher, you can provide not only size but audience effectiveness metrics to your ad sales team.Youcan also determine what content resonates best with specific demographic segments, like "Women in their 30s whoare 1st-time moms.”

Re-Targeting Opportunities

As a Travel Company, you can quickly overlay destination preferences with purchase behavior to see which audienceshave a higher propensity to book.You can then re-target these audiences.

Look-Alike Modeling

As a Multi-Media Publisher, you can compare your 3rd-party audiences using Segment IQ to understand keydifferentiating characteristics. This helps you build high-value 1st-party segments to then use for targeting.

Prospect Analysis

As a B2B Retailer, you can now deeply analyze the behavior of your prospect audience right before they purchaseusing sequential segmentation, which helps you understand what actions drive conversion.

Demographic Targeting

As a Destination Resort, you can use Histograms in Analysis Workspace to see purchases distributed by age. Thishelps you find the right audience to target for each of your resort properties.

18Use Cases

Frequently Asked QuestionsAnswers to questions you might have when implementing Audience Analytics.

• Legal FAQs• AAM-Specific FAQs• Analytics-Specific FAQs• Server-Side Forwarding (SSF) FAQs• General FAQs

Legal FAQs

Q: How do I know if I have PersonallyIdentifiable Information (PII) in my Analyticsdata? And if yes, what do I do about it?

• If you have emails/addresses/etc in a prop or eVar, considerhashing the data during collection.

• If your country considers IP address to be PII, turn on IPobfuscation.

• Talk to your Analytics Admin to see what you are collecting.• Talk to your Legal dept to see what they consider PII.

Q: How do I know if my report suites doonsite personalization, or offsite/onsitetargeting?

• These don’t apply to sending Adobe Analytics data to AdobeAudience Manager.

• Ask yourself: Will you share an Analytics-shared segment withan MCA dimension back to the Experience Cloud?

• Are you exporting (e.g. via data feeds) out to a BusinessIntelligence (BI) system that is used for these purposes?

AAM-Specific FAQs

See Create an Analytics Destination.Q: How do I create an Analytics destinationin Audience Manager?

It can take several hours to populate your report suites with newdata.

Q: After creating and saving an Analyticsdestination, how long will it take until dataappears in my selected report suites?

An Analytics destination disappears from a segment's DestinationMappings section when you select the Automatically map allcurrent and future segments option in Segment Mappings.

Q: I've created a new Analytics destination,but I don't see it in the Destination Mappingssection of my available segments. Where didthat destination go or how do I find it?

19Frequently Asked Questions

To prevent this, select Manually map segments instead of theautomatic option.

No, only data related to people who come to your site during orafter enablement of Audience Manager Audiences and during/aftersegment qualification.

Q:Will this give me all of the information fromAAM now in Analytics?

Not really. It will tell you the number of visitors in that segmentthat came to your site during or after segment qualification.

Q: Will this give me a per-segment totaladdressable audience?

Segments are qualified for and returned in real time – on thesame hit.

Q: How is this different from the legacycookie destination to Analytics?

Friendly names are shown automatically.

Tip: Create two destinations - add the personal data report suitesto one destination and the non-personal data report suites to theother.

Q: What if some of my report suites havepersonal data and some do not?

Analytics-Specific FAQs

As dimensions: Audiences ID and Audiences NameQ: Will this integration surface as adimension or segment in Analytics?

Almost everywhere; they are treated just like any other dimensioncollected in Analytics. There are two exceptions: for now, datawill not be in Data Workbench or Livestream.

Q: Where can I use these dimensions inAnalytics?

You likely have conflicting AAM privacy controls between datasource & destination

Q: Why don’t I see data coming through inAnalytics?

Q:Why are some of my segments missing inAnalytics, even though I chose to send allsegments?

• Your AAM data export controls on the destination and in thesegments’ data sources may be conflicting, preventing certainsegments from being sent.

• If you are using 3rd-party data traits in your segments, thosesegments cannot be shared to destinations (a set of reportsuites) that contain personal data.

By default, the Audience Analytics integration for AAM sends allsegments that a visitor qualifies for, on a per-hit basis, to Analytics.

Q: Why do I see "Audience limit reached" inmy Analytics report (and “1” in my AudienceID report)? If a visitor belongs to more than 150 AAM segments on a single

hit, the 150 most recently qualified segments are sent toAnalytics, while the remaining list is truncated.

20Frequently Asked Questions

An additional flag is sent to Analytics signifying that the segmentlist was truncated, and displays as “Audience limit reached” in theAudience Name dimension and “-1” in the Audience ID dimension.

While it is unlikely that a visitor qualifies for more than 150segments on a particular hit, it may happen a small percentageof the time. If you experience “Audience limit reached” in yourreporting, you have two options:

• Option 1: Continue to let the integration work in its out-of-the-boxstate, sending the 150 most recently qualified segments for aparticular visitor.

• Option 2: In AAM, choose the 150 segments that matter mostto your business for the integration. AAM then checks visitorsagainst only those 150 segments. The disadvantage of thisapproach is that you only receive those 150 segments acrossall visitors. On the other hand, the Option 1 approach can deliverunlimited segments due to the per-hit nature of the integration.

No. AAM Audiences are incorporated into the Analytics hitserver-side.This does not incur additional server calls to Analytics(primary or secondary).

Q: Will additional server calls be billed toAnalytics for this integration?

Server-Side Forwarding (SSF) FAQs

Yes. In the AAM destination setup, you will see only report suitesthat have SSF turned on.

Q: If I have legacy SSF implemented, do Ihave to also go to Analytics Admin and turnon report suite SSF?

Only suites that are mapped to your IMS Org can be enabled.Q: Why can’t I turn on certain report suitesfor SSF in Analytics Admin?

For more FAQs on this topic, see Server-Side Forwarding FAQ.

General FAQs

See Visitor Count Differences.Q: Why are the segment visitor countsdifferent between Audience Manager andAnalytics?

See Understanding Segments in Analytics and Audience Manager.Q: What is the difference between"audiences" in AAM and "segments" inAnalytics?

AAM audiences get sent over and shared as "dimension"components to be used in Analytics. They will not show up assegments in the Segment Builder, for example, but as dimensionsthat you can build segments with.

21Frequently Asked Questions

Customer Attributes are not time based; they apply retroactivelyand go-forward. AAM integrated data is time based and go-forward

Q: What is the difference between CustomerAttributes and customer data integrated fromAAM? only. Additionally, Customer Attributes is a lookup table for

Experience Cloud visitor IDs, whereas the AAM integration is datastitched into each hit for a visitor.

We recommend that you implement the new integration andremove old destinations.

Q: What about legacy approaches to thisproblem, for example, the old beta orConsulting plug-in cookie-destinations?

Visitor Count Differences

There are visitor metrics in Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager that have similar definitions, and but thatare not 100% aligned, for various reasons.

The visitor metrics are:

DefinitionMetric

Count of devices (Experience Cloud IDs) that were a member of yoursegment during the lookback period.

AAM: Total Segment Population

Count of devices (Experience Cloud IDs) that were a member of yoursegment and reached your properties during the lookback period.

AAM: Real-Time Segment Population

Shows you the number of unique visitors who reached your propertiesduring the reporting window.

Analytics: Unique Visitors

Shows you the number of unique visitors with a Experience Cloud IDwho reached your properties during the reporting window.

Analytics: Visitors with Experience CloudID

AAM Real-time Segment Population and Analytics Visitors with Experience Cloud ID used within Audience Analyticsreporting will be the most similar. For the near term however, because of several factors, there will be slightdiscrepancies between them. Contributing factors are:

Analytics: Visitors with Experience Cloud IDAAM: Real-time Segment PopulationFactor

Specified per report suiteUTC (Coordinated Universal Time)Time zone

Yes, e.g. IP filters, bot filtersNoCustom Filters

Yes - Analytics counts may be affected up to 5% bythe 150-segment integration limit. “Audience limit

No150-segment limit

reached” will appear in the Audience Namedimension if truncation has occurred.

22Frequently Asked Questions

See Understanding Segments in Analytics and Audience Manager for additional explanation on the nuances betweenAnalytics and Audience Manager data and segmentation.

Understanding Segments in Analytics and Audience Manager

Analytics and Audience Manager both use segments. However, an Analytics segment is not exactly the same thingas an Audience Manager segment. These differences contribute, in part, to the discrepancies you will see in yourAnalytics and Audience Manager reports. As a result, it's important and useful to try and understand these differenceswhen you start to work with segments in both of these solutions.

Audience Manager Segments

An Audience Manager segment is a group of visitors (user IDs) that qualify for a set of defined traits joined by logicalrules. There are four criteria that determine if a visitor (user ID) is part of a segment in Audience Manager:

• Rules set on the segments themselves and the traits that make up each segment.These rules define the conditionsa user ID has to meet or exhibit to be qualified for a segment.

• Algorithmic modeling. Users who qualify for a particular segment may qualify for other segments based on algorithmicmodeling and analysis.

• Time-to-live (TTL) intervals. Segment membership can expire after a set interval or continue indefinitely.• Recency and frequency. Defining when and how often users have an interaction (trait realization) can help create

segments based the real (or perceived) level of interest in a site, section, or particular creative.

Audience Manager segment membership is fluid. Users can enter or drop out of a segment depending on whetherthey qualify for the segment criteria at the current point in time. This means the population of an AudienceManager segment can increase or decrease over time.

An Audience Manager segment is denoted as an audience in Analytics.

For more information, refer to Trait and Segment Population Data in Segment Builder and Signals, Traits, andSegments.

Analytics Segments

An Analytics segment is a filtering mechanism for data in your reports. Filtering can occur at the visitor, visit, or hitlevel – rather than strictly at the visitor level as in Audience Manager.There are several important factors to considerwhen comparing an Analytics segment to an Audience Manager segment:

• Analytics segments operate on a different set of data than Audience Manager segments. During data collection,Analytics applies many different post-processing steps to the data that are not available to Audience Manager.Post-processing can include eVar persistence, processing rules, lookups (geo-location, mobile device), VISTA,and many others. Audience Manager receives pre-processed data through server-side forwarding (or DIL).

Common data discrepancies occur when comparing segments based on dimensions that never expire in Analytics,to the same dimension in Audience Manager. For example, listVars or merchandising eVars that never expire.

For example, if eVar = blue and is set to never expire in Analytics, any segment in Analytics with criteria “eVar =blue” will always include this visitor. Whereas, in Audience Manager, that visitor could fall out of a similarly definedsegment after a set period of time.

• Analytics segments have more capabilities than AAM segments. Audience Manager segments are always evaluatedat a visitor level. Analytics segments can be defined at a visitor, visit, or hit level (or a combination of these levels).Additionally, Analytics supports advanced segmentation capabilities that Audience Manager does not, such assequential segmentation.

23Frequently Asked Questions

• As mentioned previously, Audience Manager visitors can enter or drop out of a segment depending on whetherthey qualify for the segment criteria at the current point in time.

Conversely, in Analytics, visitors will be included or excluded from a segment based on the reporting date range.For example, a single visitor made a purchase last month. In AAM, that visitor would be included in a “purchaser”segment, regardless of the date range. In Analytics, a report based on this month would not include the visitor inthe segment. However, a report based on this month & last month would include the visitor in the segment.

See the Analytics Segmentation Guide for more information.

24Frequently Asked Questions

Contact and Legal InformationInformation to help you contact Adobe and to understand the legal issues concerning your use of this product anddocumentation.

Help & Technical Support

The Adobe Experience Cloud Customer Care team is here to assist you and provides a number of mechanisms bywhich they can be engaged:

• Check the Experience Cloud help pages for advice, tips, and FAQs• Ask us a quick question on Twitter @AdobeExpCare• Log an incident in our customer portal• Contact the Customer Care team directly• Check availability and status of Experience Cloud Solutions

Service, Capability & Billing

Dependent on your solution configuration, some options described in this documentation might not be available toyou. As each account is unique, please refer to your contract for pricing, due dates, terms, and conditions. If youwould like to add to or otherwise change your service level, or if you have questions regarding your current service,please contact your Account Manager.

Feedback

We welcome any suggestions or feedback regarding this solution. Enhancement ideas and suggestions can beadded to our Customer Idea Exchange.

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25Contact and Legal Information