Adobe Analytics Developer Professional cheat sheet

The Solution Design Reference maps each business requirement to a report suite, variable, event, and classification; obtain approval before coding.

Implementation choice: AppMeasurement for legacy JavaScript pages, Web SDK for Experience Platform edge collection, mobile SDK for apps, and Data Insertion API for offline or server-side data.

Report suite timezone, currency, and base URL are set at creation; changing them later breaks period comparisons and currency interpretation.

Multi-suite tagging sends one hit to a global suite plus business-unit suites; each additional suite increases processing and requires consistent variable definitions.

A virtual report suite applies a segment at report time; it does not copy data and cannot report data absent from the parent suite.

Never send names, emails, or raw identifiers; use approved IDs or hashed values and document the governance rule in the Solution Design Reference.

Event types: counter increments, numeric accepts numbers, and currency converts using report suite currency; serialization prevents duplicate event counts.

Naming convention formula: [scope][business unit][metric]; use lowercase and no spaces to simplify processing rules, segments, and reports.

A tag rule consists of an event, optional conditions, and actions; actions execute in order and rule order can be controlled.

Data elements are evaluated when referenced; they can read JavaScript objects, cookies, query strings, DOM elements, or local storage.

The Analytics extension settings include report suites, tracking server, visitor ID, and global variables; these settings seed each hit.

Web SDK configure requires a datastream ID and organization ID; sendEvent sends XDM data, and datastream mapping translates fields into Analytics variables.

s.t() sends a page view; s.tl(this,'o','Name') sends a custom link, s.tl(this,'d','File') a download, and s.tl(this,'e','Exit') an exit link.

Set consent before any tracking call; Web SDK setConsent and the Adobe opt-in service determine whether hits are sent.

A first-party tracking server via CNAME reduces third-party cookie blocking; trackingServerSecure must match the HTTPS host.

Publish libraries through development, staging, and production; embed codes differ by environment and staging should use a separate test report suite.

Props are traffic variables; eVars are conversion variables with expiration such as visit, page view, event, or custom days, plus allocation such as last, first, or linear.

Processing rules run at hit level before storage; conditions can use query string, context data, or variable values, and actions can set, delete, or copy values.

Context data is not reportable until mapped by processing rules or Web SDK datastream mapping.

Classifications add metadata through SAINT, FTP, or API; classification keys must match variable values exactly and do not change raw values.

List variables use a delimiter to split one variable into multiple reportable values; configure the delimiter in report suite settings.

Merchandising eVars bind to products; use s.products with event syntax and merchandising binding to attribute success per product.

Marketing Channel rules assign a channel based on campaign, referrer, and paid search; rule order matters because the first matching rule wins.

Prop and eVar values are truncated at 100 bytes; list values at 250 bytes; validate length before sending long text.

Experience Platform Debugger shows Analytics beacons, variable values, and tag rule execution; the network panel shows the /b/ss/ request and its query parameters.

If no hit appears: check JavaScript errors, consent state, ad blockers, trackingServer, report suite ID, and whether s.t() runs after AppMeasurement loads.

Data feed rows are hit-level and can be compared with reports; differences reveal processing rules, VISTA, bot filtering, or classification lag.

Real-time reports validate recent hits and variable values but retain limited history; use them for immediate QA, not historical reconciliation.

Web SDK troubleshooting: enable debugEnabled or use Assurance, then inspect the edge request, datastream mapping, and Analytics response.

Mobile validation uses Assurance and lifecycle metrics; verify launch hits and the Analytics response before promoting the library.

Validate in a staging report suite with a known baseline and a debug proxy before production release.

Variable truncation and missing values often come from byte limits, case mismatches, or data elements that resolve after the hit is sent.

Segment containers are hit, visit, and visitor; a visitor-level segment includes all hits from matching visitors and can inflate hit-level metrics.

Calculated metric formula: combine existing metrics with operators, filters, or functions; confirm metric type and attribution before sharing.

Attribution models distribute credit across touchpoints; changing the model alters channel and campaign reports but not raw event collection.

A virtual report suite applies a segment at report time; use it for focused views without copying or modifying parent data.

Data Warehouse and data feeds export processed data; data feeds are hit-level and can be joined to classifications for deeper analysis.

Analytics segments can be shared to Experience Cloud for Target, Campaign, and Audience Manager; the user needs the appropriate permissions.

Report Builder uses Analytics APIs for Excel; scheduled workbooks refresh with current data and respect selected segments and date ranges.

Customer Journey Analytics uses Experience Platform datasets, connections, and data views; person ID stitching differs from Analytics visitor ID.