Adobe Analytics’ Calculated Metric Builder offers the ability to create unlimited, on-demand metrics. With the ability to add segments to a custom metric, analysts have the ability to create virtually any metric they can dream up. Pair that with the available mathematical functions, and you can start to see the power of this feature.

This feature makes it amazingly easy to answer a question that’s been asked by literally every analyst to view an Adobe Analytics report:

How many unique values (line items) are in this report?

Historically, to calculate the number of unique line items in a report, an analyst would have to navigate to the very last page in the report, note the number of total rows, and, if necessary, subtract one to account for the “None” line item.

The Calculated Metric Builder lets us create a custom metric that does this work for us. When the metric is applied, each line item will show the total count of unique line items in the report. If you navigate to the last page of the report, you should find that the value displayed for the custom metric matches the total number of rows.

Let’s first take a look at a simple example report showing the total number of unique User ID instances. Note how the total number of rows (unique line items) matches the value of the custom “User ID Instances” metric:

Now, let’s look at how it’s done

• In the Calculated Metric Builder, we’re letting the “Count” function do the heavy lifting in the metric definition
• Next, we’ve added the “Instances” metric for our chosen report. In the example below, we’ve chosen instances for our “User ID” report (eVar1) : 

That’s all there is to it!

As shown above, when you apply the custom metric to your report, you instantly see the total number of unique values (rows) in the report. And, perhaps best of all, because this is a simple calculation on existing data, you can use the metric with historical data! There is no need for additional front-end implementation work.

We can expand on this approach to answer any number of questions. For example, consider applying a custom segment to your calculated metric definition:

• Add the “Visits where an internal search was performed” segment to get the total number of unique User IDs who performed an internal search.
• Add the “Visits from SEO” segment to get the total number of unique User IDs who were referred to your site from SEO.

The options here are limitless. How do you use the Calculated Metric Builder?