Adobe wants to enable your organization so that you can comply with applicable laws and regulations. See Adobe Experience Cloud privacy for more information. Between Adobe Analytics and your organization, Adobe acts as a “data processor” and you are the “data controller” (or equivalent under applicable privacy and data protection laws). It is up to your organization to disclose how you use Adobe’s products and services because your organization exclusively controls how to implement Adobe’s solutions. While using Adobe Analytics, your organization is responsible for complying with your own privacy policy, your service agreement with Adobe, and all applicable laws.
Adobe strongly recommends adhering to the following overarching concepts:
Adobe offers multiple data collection libraries to assist in sending data to Adobe. Notable examples include:
Adobe Analytics can collect the following types of data:
Type of data | Details | Example variables containing this data |
---|---|---|
Page names or URLs of web pages on your site | This data is required for Adobe Analytics to function. A URL or page name is required for every hit. | Page, Page URL |
Time-based data | This data is required for Adobe Analytics to function. A timestamp is required for data collection, and time-based data is derived from the timestamp. | Time spent on page, Hour of day, AM/PM, Weekday/Weekend, Day of week, Month of year |
Referrer data | Data collection libraries collect the referring URL by default when a visitor arrives to your website. You can customize your implementation to collect data within a referrer’s query string. This practice is common for campaigns and tracking ad performance. | Referrer, Referring domain |
Anonymized visitor ID’s | Data collection libraries generate and reference a visitor ID for each browser visiting your site. This ID is stored in a cookie. If a data collection library cannot set a cookie identifier, the library uses a fallback method of anonymous visitor identification. This method involves tying related hits to the same visit using the visitor’s IP address and user agent string. If your organization has IP obfuscation enabled, this setting is honored. See Adobe Analytics and browser cookies for more information. | Unique visitors |
Identifiable visitor ID’s | Adobe does not automatically collect custom visitor IDs. However, you can customize your implementation to collect this data. | visitorID |
External search terms | External search data includes keywords that originate from search engines. Data collection libraries look for this data based on the referring URL. However, many modern search engines no longer include this information. | Search keyword |
Internal search terms | Internal search data includes keywords that originate from within your website or app’s search capabilities. Adobe does not automatically collect internal search data. However, you can customize your implementation to collect this data. This practice is common for organizations who use Adobe Analytics. | eVar |
Computer and browser specifications | Data collection libraries automatically collect low entropy browser hints, such as the browser type, operating system type, and if the device is desktop or mobile. Custom configuration is required to collect high entropy hints, such as the browser’s specific version/build, the device model, or the operating system version. See Client hints overview for more information. | Browser, Operating system, Mobile dimensions, Monitor resolution |
Geolocation information | Adobe offers the ability to prevent detailed geo location by setting the last octet of an IP address to 0. This makes geo information less precise and can be set in report suite settings. | Cities, Regions, Countries |
IP address | Adobe offers the ability to obfuscate (hash) or fully remove the visitor’s IP address when storing this data. EMEA customers typically have the IP address setting obfuscated by default. Regardless of obfuscation setting, IP address is not available as a dimension in Analysis Workspace; it is only included in Data feeds. See General account settings in the Admin guide for details around available obfuscation settings. | None |
Form information provided on your site | All implementation types require configuration to collect this data. You can include this data in custom variables. | eVar |
Clicked ads or links on your site | Collected if trackExternalLinks or trackDownloadLinks is enabled. Additional information, such as the location of clicks, is available when you enable Activity Map. |
Activity Map, Exit link, Download link |
Products purchased on your site | All implementation types require configuration to collect this data. Adobe offers several default variables to collect this information. | Product, Orders, Revenue |
See the navigation menu under Dimensions overview and Metrics overview for more variables that Adobe can potentially collect data under.
Adobe maintains three data processing locations for Adobe Analytics. These sites receive raw data and process it into a report suite, which is optimized for data storage and reporting retrieval. These data processing locations currently reside in the United States (Oregon), the United Kingdom (London), and Singapore. See Adobe Analytics security overview for more information.