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Scenario Analysis shows more visits in lower steps than in steps leading to them

Products

Webtrends Analytics 8.x
Webtrends Analytics 9.x

Issue

A Scenario Analysis showing scenario entry and exit pages shows some lower steps as having more visits than the steps that lead to them.

Cause

This results from web site design that allows visitors to skip steps. The arrows on the left indicate visitors who started their visit at the current step, or came from a page that was not a part of the scenario steps, and excludes visitors who came from previous steps. The arrow above the current step is meant to show visitors coming directly from the previous step only, excluding visitors who came from steps further above. In a three-step scenario, when a visitor starts their visit at the first step and goes directly to the third step, the arrow from the second step will not include this visitor in the count because the second step was skipped. Additionally, this visit will not be added to the count on the left-hand side because this is neither the start of the visit nor is it a page outside of the scenario.

Resolution

For a better understanding of how traffic is moving through the scenario analysis, click on the View Step Transitions button in the upper right. This limits the report to displaying only the actions within the pages of the Scenario Analysis. The right-hand side will show visitors “jumping” from higher steps to lower steps, skipping steps between.