Troubleshooting: Web Personalization (RTP) - Segment Based on Number of Visits Matching Incorrect Leads

Included in this article:

 

Overview

Often when looking at a segment based on "number of visits", you may see some leads who look like they should not qualify. These leads are usually qualified, but it may not be evident by looking at the matched visitors.

 

 

Viewing Visits in the Visitors List

When viewing visits, the data scope is Daily / Weekly / Monthly:

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 10.46.22 AM.png

Because of this, a visitor might show up here as visiting for the first time (in the selected scope) but in fact, they visited a few times in the past before the selected time range. This is why a segment that is supposed to match visitors on their >2 visits may be matching visitors that show up as on their 1st visit.

 

Example of what this looks like

  • Filter used in Segment:

RTP image.png

  • Visitors List Showing less than 2 visits

RTP image.png

 

Explanation of How It Works

RTP stores the total number of visits each visitor has to your website in a cookie:

cookie namecookie example
trwv.uidsupportqe-1440082006718-df69a80e%3A12

 

The last number in the cookie represents the number of times the visitor visited this website (in this case it's 12). This cookie is stored in the visitor's browser for 2 years (unless deleted) and is updated every visit. So, if the visitor came to your site 11 times about 7 months ago, then when they came back again to your site the one time today, they would match the filter looking for visitors who had been there more than twice, but the visitor list would only show 1 visit since that's all that has happened within the last month it's looking for.