This Framework provides a structured approach to validate your Adobe Experience Platform implementation, which is crucial for ensuring data quality, maximizing the investment of your marketing spend, and driving informed decision-making across the organization.

If you are anticipating migrating from Adobe Analytics to Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) in the future, this framework is for you.

For the purposes of this framework, all references to Adobe Experience Platform Tags will refer the "Adobe Experience Platform (AEP): Analytics" Tag because it is the primary data collection vehicle for AEP.

For more details on how ObservePoint supports server-side validation of all AEP tags, see this guide.

Each Framework aligns with ObservePoint capabilities, but it will also include recommended processes, documents, and policies that we recommend an organization consider in their pursuit of excellence.

This Framework is organized into the following Policies:

Each policy contains individual Checks.

For each Check, we will include links to pre-built reports in the ObservePoint Platform and an implementation & remediation guide.

Each check will be accompanied with an icon.

The ✅ icon represents a Check is out of the box available by just running an Audit.

The 🛠️ ✅ icons represent a Check that requires additional configuration.

In addition to checks, there are recommended documents (📄) and processes (⚖️) we encourage you to maintain as they are part of an effective governance program.

Before diving into specifics of each policy, we want to provide our recommendation around scope and frequency of validating your AEP implementation.

If you find that you are having trouble determining how many pages exist on a domain, ask your Success Manager or our Support Team and ask about running a Site Census scan.

If you have additional questions regarding our recommendation, contact our team.

This policy represents checks that pertain to the health of the Adobe Experience Platform Tag behavior.

When an AEP tag does not return a "Success" (200) status code, it means the tag was incorrectly implemented, and data was not collected, which can lead to lack of overall trust in Adobe Experience Platform reporting for an organization.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Broken Adobe Experience Platform Tags

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League

Similar to the check above, console errors associated with AEP requests mean that the tag was incorrectly implemented and data was not collected which can lead to lack of overall trust in AEP reporting for an organization.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Experience Platform Browser Console Errors

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League

Console warnings associated with AEP requests mean that the tag could be implemented incorrectly. The Warning message will provide more context.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Experience Platform Browser Console Warnings

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League

Adobe Experience Platform tags should not take longer than 500 ms to load. This ensures that the impact on page performance is mitigated and data loss is avoided.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Experience Platform load times over 500 ms

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Asynchronous Deployment

This policy represents checks that pertain to how the Adobe Experience Platform

Tag is implemented for the measurement of different events.

All pages should have Adobe Experience Platform tags implemented on them to ensure the entire customer journey is accurately reflected in AEP reporting.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages missing Adobe Experience Platform

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Data Collection FAQ

When AEP data is sent to the wrong Datastream, it can render some reports completely useless. It's critical that when you set up test Datastreams in lower environments, those test Datastream IDs do not end up on production pages.

Report in ObservePoint: Datastream IDs for each Domain

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Datastreams Overview

Correct data capture is critical for segmentation and general analysis in Adobe Experience Platform reporting. Incorrect event mapping or loss of event attributes will leave you misinformed and lead to reduced conversion event context.

Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - XDM Object Mapping

When AEP tags are duplicated, event data is inflated. The result is that pages may appear to be converting at 50% of their actual conversion rate, and some pages may appear to have 100% more traffic than reality. This dramatically impacts the perceived customer journey and gives false readings on the performance of campaigns.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Duplicate Adobe Experience Platform Tags

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Event ID Serialization

Precise AEP tag timing is essential because firing too early or too late results in data discrepancies, such as "Unspecified" variables, inflated conversion rates, and broken session attribution.

Misaligned firing also poses significant risks to privacy compliance and can lead to under-reporting if tags fail to sync correctly with consent frameworks or page redirects. Furthermore, optimized tag execution ensures data integrity without compromising site performance or losing "hits" due to high latency and rapid user navigation.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Experience Platform Tags firing after Largest Contentful Paint

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Asynchronous Deployment

To ensure reliable transport and data integrity, AEP payloads must use URL-safe, ASCII-compatible characters to prevent browsers or proxies from corrupting or blocking malformed requests. Maintaining strict character standards is vital for downstream identity stitching in Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), as non-standard encoding causes exact-string-match failures that lead to fragmented or duplicate profiles in the Unified Profile Service.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with Adobe Experience Platform capturing non-ASCII characters

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Data Prep

Correctly capturing campaign tracking codes is essential because they serve as the foundational key for attributing conversions and revenue to specific marketing efforts across different channels. Without accurate campaign codes, AEP cannot provide accurate attribution for campaigns which leads to flawed ROI analysis and the inability to optimize marketing spend based on actual performance.

Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Campaign

This policy represents checks that pertain to correct identity recognition and management.

kndctr "Identity" and "Cluster" cookies are essential because they provide a stable, first-party Experience Cloud ID (ECID) that ensures consistent visitor recognition and data stitching across the entire Adobe ecosystem. Without these cookies present on every page, identity fragmentation occurs, leading to inaccurate visitor counts, unreliable customer journey analysis, and disjointed user experiences as known visitors are incorrectly treated as anonymous.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages with kndctr cookies (Compare with full URL list to find pages missing the cookie)

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Identity in Data Collection

This policy represents checks that pertain to correct Data Layer implementation. If you use a custom data layer name, be sure to provide it in our Data Layer settings.

A consistent, site-wide data layer is the "single source of truth" that bridges the gap between your website's raw code and AEP. Without it, your tracking becomes a fragile game of "guesswork" based on unpredictable page elements.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages missing Data Layer

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Data Layer

Validating the mapping between your data layer and AEP is the only way to ensure that the "raw" data on your website is actually being translated into "actionable" insights in your reports. Even if your data layer is perfect, a mapping error can lead to expensive data gaps or permanent corruption of your historical records.

Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Data Layer

This policy represents checks that pertain to page behavior that support analytics.

Maintaining query parameters through redirects is critical because these parameters are the "DNA" of your marketing attribution. When a server redirect strips these parameters away, AEP loses the connection between the user's click and the resulting site activity.

Report in ObservePoint: Pages that lose query parameters after redirects

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Redirects

This policy represents checks that pertain to appropriate response to privacy regulations.

Honoring consent is not just a best practice, it is a technical and legal requirement for AEP to operate within the modern digital landscape. When your tags respect user choices, they protect your business from litigation, maintain data integrity, and build consumer trust.

Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source Citation: Adobe Experience League - Privacy Overview

It is critical that AEP tags are configured to avoid collecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Protected Health Information (PHI) because the platform is primarily designed for aggregate behavioral analysis, not as a secure repository for sensitive personal data. Injecting PII/PHI into your analytics hits creates significant legal, financial, and operational liabilities. Adobe strongly discourages it.

Report in ObservePoint: See Guide Below

Implementation & Remediation Guide: Link (coming soon)

Source citation: Adobe Experience League - Privacy Overview

This policy represents recommended documents and processes pertaining to Adobe Experience Platform Implementation.

The BRD is the strategic foundation. It is important because it shifts the focus from "what can we track" to "what must we measure." Without a BRD, teams often implement tags that generate "data noise" without answering key business questions. It ensures that stakeholders and developers are aligned on the specific KPIs and business goals before any code is written.

Template: Link (coming soon)

Full Guide: The Web Analytics Source of Truth

The TSD is the developer’s roadmap. It is important because it translates high-level business needs into technical reality (e.g., CSS selectors, data layer objects, and JavaScript triggers). A solid TSD prevents "guesswork" during implementation, reducing bugs and ensuring that the data layer is structured correctly to be consumed by Adobe Experience Platform.

Template: Link (coming soon)

Full Guide: The Web Analytics Source of Truth

The SDR is the "Source of Truth" for your data map. It is important because it keeps a permanent record of which eVar, prop, and event is assigned to which data point. Without an SDR, analysts have no way of knowing what "eVar42" represents, leading to data overwrites, broken reports, and an inability to perform long-term historical analysis.

Template: Link (coming soon)

Full Guide: The Web Analytics Source of Truth

The Taxonomy Guide is the dictionary for your data. It is important because it defines the naming conventions (e.g., "lowercase only," "use hyphens instead of spaces") for values like campaign names and page categories. Consistent taxonomy ensures that your reports are clean and searchable; without it, your data becomes fragmented (e.g., "Email," "email," and "EMail" appearing as three separate line items).

Template: Link (coming soon)

Full Guide: The Web Analytics Source of Truth

This policy is the governance firewall for your analytics environment. It is important because it prevents "tag bloat" and data corruption. By rejecting requests that lack a technical spec or a clear business "Why," you ensure that:

This framework is not a comprehensive guide to everything that can or should be done to validate your Adobe Experience Platform implementation, but it is a solid foundation.

As ObservePoint unlocks more data and enhances its platform, we will support more checks to be fully automated. Expect this framework to evolve in time, and talk to our Customer Success if you have other checks you want to implement.