Someone asked me the other day: if I cannot currently run tests to improve data quality, is there anything else I can do to make my data better? Now there's a good question! The obvious, easy, and somewhat lame answer is: well, why can't you run tests? You'd be able to catch and prevent, like, …
Tag: processing rules
Counter eVars
I think I have mentioned eVars often enough by now for you to know what they are and what we use them for. (Let me know if not, I'm happy to write more about them! They are way better than props!) In essence, they serve as dimensions in reports. Rather than just knowing that 200 …
One Report Suite or Two?
The question was raised by Antti Koski: if I have an app and a mobile site, do I track those separately or into a single report suite? I felt the question warrented more than just a reply on his comment, so I promised Antti to do my best and answer it in an article as …
Using Data Feeds for Debugging
When I wrote about debugging mobile apps some time ago I mentioned that one way to get data out of SiteCatalyst Adobe Analytics for troubleshooting is the so-called "Data Feeds" — flat files of raw data delivered by FTP, containing one line per every hit sent. BIG data When you looked at the URL of …
A Short History of Processing a Hit
In the article about Modifying Data Server-Side, we gave a brief list of the steps that every bit of data has to go through before your friendly marketer will see it in her reports. Let's expand on that and also mention the different points where you can add information or retrieve it. Let's start in …
KPIs and Success Events
Ah... months with 5 Tuesdays... I don't like them. When do I post? Week 1 and 3, as usual? Do I leave a gap in week 5, then? Or do I post more frequently — say in weeks 1, 3 & 5, shortening the potential gap? How about posting in weeks 1 & 4, as …
Processing Rules – Positive or Precise
I came across an interesting gotcha last week when I was helping a German company troubleshoot their tracking. They were sending in a prop and an eVar along with an event as payload on a custom link. The numbers for that custom link were a lot higher than the event and the instances on both …
2 Good Reasons to use Context Data
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. …
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 …
Context Data Variables & Processing Rules
When Processing Rules were first released in SiteCatalyst 15 in 2011, they were perceived by many as a light-weight alternative to VISTA Rules. That's not entirely wrong. The big improvement that they brought, though, was their usage in conjunction with Context Data Variables. It really makes sense to mention both together. So, what are Context …
