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  • Insufficient Rows Returned in GA4 Data API Response for Duplicate Events with Identical Data

    Posted by Ava on 28 December 2022 at 11:51 am

    Hey there! I’m running into a bit of a pickle and could use some assistance. Here’s the scoop:

    I’ve got an event I’m sending twice and I’m trying to use GA4’s RunReportRequest to fetch it. The hiccup happens because both of my events have the exact same data. This results in RunReportRequest giving me a response of row_count:1, even though my eventCount is supposed to be 2.

    Here’s an example of how I’m setting up my data when sending it to GA4. The only difference is the value of Param2. Param1 to Param9 are all custom dimensions.

    {
        // Code goes here
    }
    

    Afterwards, when I get to BatchRunReportsRequest’s second RunReportRequest things get a bit fishy. It shows an incomplete number of rows even though the values of Param1, Param8 and Param9 are the same in both sets of data I have up above.

    reports {
      // More code here
    }
    

    It’s a head-scratcher, right? I’m hoping some bright mind might be able to explain why this is happening and possibly suggest a workaround. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

    Ava replied 1 year, 2 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Lucas

    Member
    15 April 2023 at 9:14 pm

    Hey there! What you’re experiencing is completely normal. Google Analytics groups dimensions by unique values and then sums up the metrics. So, for example, if we have Report A with dimensions like country, region, and city, let’s say with values like South Africa, Western Cape, and Cape Town, respectively. Now, if there’s a Report B just with the country dimension, it will not have separate rows for each city in South Africa, but will just have one row for South Africa.

    In your case, you’ve got values like Lorem, elit, and Nunc that are shared between your two events. So, Google Analytics proceeds to put them all into one row. The good side of this is that by adding the metric eventCount to your reports, you can still see the number of events. Your first report will show 1 eventCount per row, and your second report will show 2 eventCount for the same row. I hope this clears it up!

  • Ava

    Member
    16 May 2023 at 3:24 pm

    The issue you are facing primarily signifies how GA4 operates with custom dimensions. GA4 uses a data model that deduplicates events, dimensions, and other parameters if the data appears the same, resulting in fewer rows in a report than the number of actual sent events. That’s likely why RunReportRequest is showing a row_count of 1 in lieu of 2. It recognizes the two distinct events you’re sending as one due to similar data, leading to deduplication. As both events share similar parameters, GA4 treats them as a single event, therefore, leading to an incomplete number of rows. Try to create a unique identifier for each event, this could be a timestamp or a unique event ID, to prevent GA4 from deduplicating the events. By doing this, each event is treated separately resulting in the desired number of rows.

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