My colleague Carl Sandquist recently wrote "Although you may get a bit teary-eyed bidding farewell to expounding on the differences of eVars and props to your developers, we’re sure you’ll eventually get over it." He's obviously right about this: developers will shed no tears if they never have to see props or eVars ever again. … Continue reading 2 Good Reasons to use Context Data
Category: Principles
Articles that explain general concepts and principles behind web analytics and Adobe Analytics
SiteCatalyst is not a Database
I had a lengthy discussion the other day with people who looked at a common scenario: their implementation was about 2.5 years old and they were struggling to get at the data that they needed. The interesting part about this specific discussion was that we had a guy at the table who clearly was approaching … Continue reading SiteCatalyst is not a Database
How to Track Play Store Campaign Codes
The new Android app that some of your colleagues are currently building has to be tracked. Fortunately, your organisation is mature, has therefore thought about this well in advance and as a result you are well under way with your analytics implementation. (Note: if you are still wondering about how to implement in a mobile … Continue reading How to Track Play Store Campaign Codes
“Data Layer” Tips
I'd like you to read an article written by Josh West about TMS Best Practices: Get the Data Layer Right, in which he makes a case for having a dedicated mechanism for surfacing data (the "data layer"). Go ahead, I'll wait. Back? I like this quote: Developers are notorious (I speak from experience) for looking … Continue reading “Data Layer” Tips
Adobe Marketing Cloud APIs
I have "mentioned" the Reporting API before, a means of getting information out of Adobe analytics programmatically. There are of course some more APIs that allow you to automate tasks in the context of the Adobe Marketing Cloud. This post shall introduce the most important ones. You can also check out the official introduction on the Developer … Continue reading Adobe Marketing Cloud APIs
How Do I – Track Page Load
Let's begin our irregular series of articles explaining how to do things with a simple one: how do I track page loads? KPI(s) The underlying questions your friendly marketer is asking include: How many Visits and Visitors do I get (to a certain part of my site)? What are the most popular pages on our … Continue reading How Do I – Track Page Load
Redirect Tracking
While we're introducing different options to track, let me tell you about redirect tracking. Before I go into the technical details and explain how to implement it, let me explain what it is and what people use it for. Use Cases Say you want to track exit links, but you don't want to use Javascript … Continue reading Redirect Tracking
Tracking w/o Javascript
Almost all web analytics tools these days are tracking using Javascript in the browser, see the post about Basic Tracking. With Adobe Analytics, you have a couple of other possibilities to get data into the system. My colleague Brent Dykes has written a blog article on How to Get Data In and Out of SiteCatalyst … Continue reading Tracking w/o Javascript
Real Time Reports via the Reporting API
Did you know that since the release on June 20th, you can get data out of the Reporting API with seconds of latency? This is a case where the Reporting API added functionality before the Adobe Analytics web UI! So what can we do with that "real time data"? And how does it work? Use … Continue reading Real Time Reports via the Reporting API
Data Centres
(Or data centers, for you in the US of A) (2020 update: some of the below is outdated. You may also want to read Edge Nodes, Data Centres & other updates, it has more recent information) Adobe Analytics is a "cloud-based solution", or a Saas, a software as a service. That means: it doesn't run … Continue reading Data Centres
Web Analytics for Developers 