Detecting Duplicates


Duplicate Events

We ignore a Kissmetrics event if the two requests match along three parameters (according to our API specifications):

  1. Identity (_p parameter)
  2. Name of the event (_n parameter)
  3. Timestamp of the event (_t parameter)

In other words, if we see the same person doing the same event at the exact same second, then we ignore any duplicates and count only one instance of that event.

Duplicate Properties

We handle Kissmetrics properties similarly, if the two (or more) requests match along three parameters (according to our API specifications):

  1. Identity (_p parameter)
  2. Name of the property ([property name] parameter)
  3. Timestamp of the event (_t parameter)

In other words, if we see the same person setting the same property (with any value) at the exact same second, then we only set one of the values for that particular property. Note that it doesn’t matter if the values to the single property are different.

Notes

Duplicates can come up when…

  • If a customer’s browser makes multiple attempts at sending an event.
  • When a server-side API retries attempts to send data to our tracking data.
  • Retrying the import of a .csv file of data

The duplicates are excluded during reporting. If you are using our Raw Data Export, you may find duplicates among your logs.

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