Dimensions vs metrics

Dimensions vs metrics

The foundation of all Adobe Analytics reporting is the dimension-metric pair. Every report is: "[metric] by [dimension]".

Metric — the counter

A metric is a number you want to count. It answers "how many" or "how much".

Examples:

• Visitors (unique people)
• Visits (sessions)
• Page views (times a page loaded)
• Revenue (dollars)
• Form submissions (event fires)

Metrics are always numeric. You sum, average, or deduplicate them.

Dimension — the grouping axis

A dimension is a category you want to group by. It answers "break that down by what".

Examples:

• Page name (break down metric by page)
• Device type (break down metric by desktop/mobile/tablet)
• Traffic source (break down metric by organic/paid/direct)
• Form type (break down metric by contact vs complaint)

Dimensions are text or categorical. You group by them.

The dimension-metric table

Every report is a 2D table: metrics across the top (columns), dimensions down the left (rows).

| Page Name       | Visitors | Page Views | Revenue |
|-----------------|----------|------------|---------|
| Home            | 1,200    | 3,500      | $0      |
| Product         | 800      | 2,100      | $2,500  |
| Checkout        | 450      | 900        | $5,200  |

• Each metric is a column (Visitors, Page Views, Revenue)
• Each page is a row (Home, Product, Checkout)
• Each cell is the metric value for that dimension value

Metrics defined by collection

Page views: Fires every time a page loads (you track it with page view rule)

Visitors: Unique ECID values in the report period

Visits: Groups of hits separated by 30-minute inactivity

Revenue: Value of the revenue variable you sent

Form submissions: Count of times event1 fired on your form

Common dimension examples for Example Super

• Page name: / (home), /complaint-form, /search-results
• Form type: contact form, complaint form
• Device type: desktop, mobile
• Referrer: google, direct, linkedin.com
• Search term: what the user typed in site search
• Date: break down by day, week, month

Dimensions from variables

You collect dimension values via:

• Props: Hit-level traffic variables (page section, device type)
• eVars: Session or visitor-scoped conversion variables (campaign source, customer segment)
• Automatic dimensions: Date, device, referrer (Adobe collects these automatically)

Metric arithmetic

You can create calculated metrics from base metrics:

• Bounce rate = bounces / visits
• Revenue per visitor = revenue / visitors
• Conversion rate = orders / visitors
• Average order value = revenue / orders

Dimension-metric mistakes

Mistake 1: Treating a dimension as a metric

• ❌ "How many form types did we have?"
• ✓ "How many submissions by form type?" (form type = dimension, submissions = metric)

Mistake 2: Confusing the rows and columns

• ❌ Putting metrics down the left (wrong orientation)
• ✓ Putting dimensions down left, metrics across top

Mistake 3: Creating unsumming dimensions

• Example: if you report visitor count by timestamp, each timestamp has different visitors
• Sum of all timestamps ≠ total visitors (you overcounted due to visitor overlap)

Reporting example: Example Super

Question: "How many visitors came to the complaint form page, and how many submitted?"

Setup:

• Dimension: Page name (and filter to "/complaint-form")
• Metrics: Visitors, Orders (count of form submissions)

Answer:

| Page Name    | Visitors | Orders |
|--------------|----------|--------|
| Complaint    | 450      | 125    |

"450 visitors landed on the complaint form page, 125 submitted."