Paths analysis will be discontinued beginning in May 2023. We recently launched Journeys, a more insightful, visual map of the paths users take throughout a product. Learn more about this update in our community post. Note that this deprecation does not apply to the Path property.
Paths start being counted whenever a matching start event is identified, and common paths are aggregated at the session level.
Given start event a (ex. View Product Page) within the path a > b > c > a > c > d > e in a single session, represented in our example as:
View Product Page > Click Product Image > Click Product Details > View Product Page > Click Product Details > Add Product To Cart > Click 'Check Out'
Where:
a = View Product Page
b = Click Product Image
c = Click Product Details
d = Add Product To Cart
e = Click 'Check Out'
We would aggregate one session with the contained path a > b > c > a > c > d > e represented in our example as:
View Product Page > Click Product Image > Click Product Details > View Product Page > Click Product Details > Add Product To Cart > Click 'Check Out'
Plus one session with the contained path a > c > d > e represented as:
View Product Page > Click Product Details > Add Product To Cart > Click 'Check Out'.
Because the user repeated the start event a or View Product Page twice in one session, that start event triggers a new, separate path. Thus, two separate paths are counted from that single session.