Edge Data Collection Concepts: Experience Events

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Welcome to our new blog series on Edge Data Collection Concepts, where we’ll explore key elements of Edge Data Collection and their role in your implementation! To kick things off, we're diving into Experience Events – an essential component of Edge Data Collection, designed to capturing real-time user interactions and transform them into actionable insights.

What are Experience Events?

Experience Events in Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) are records representing user interactions, such as an add to cart or purchase event. These records can be ingested in real-time or batched and are used to enrich data around user behaviors.  

Experience Data Model (XDM) Schema:

AEP data is structured using an Experience Data Model (XDM) schema. Each XDM schema consists of two parts:  

• Class: Defines the type of data. The two primary classes are Experience Event (for event records like interactions) and Individual Profile (for customer attributes like names and loyalty details). 

• Field Groups: Labels used for data collection, allowing for customization and adding relevant fields.  

Implementing Experience Events

To leverage Experience Events, create an XDM schema choosing the Experience Event class. This will automatically enable key fields, including _id and timestamp, which are required fields and collected automatically, as well as other fields important to your events, such as eventType and identityMap.  

Add any field groups necessary to your implementation or create your own custom fields for your schema. Use this schema as the structure of data collection for your user interaction data in your Web SDK or Mobile SDK or when formatting your batch data files. Link your Experience Event schema to relevant datasets for ingestion, ensuring data flows into AEP. Keep in mind that while AEP data requires the XDM schema format, Adobe Analytics, Target, and Audience Manager do not and can be configured using the data object variable. 

Use Cases for Experience Events

There are several use cases where you may want to leverage Experience Events in AEP. Consider the following:  

1. Customer Journey Analytics: Capture cross-channel interactions to analyze and gain insights from complete customer journeys based on real-time actions.  
2. Personalized Customer Experiences: Trigger personalized messages and offers based on real-time actions, such as cart abandonment.  
3. Real-Time Customer Segmentation: Use event data in Real-Time Customer Data Platform (RTCDP) to create dynamic audiences based on interactions and intent.  

Key Considerations

Keep these tips in mind when working with Experience Events:  

1. Schema Alignment and Consistency: Ensure that your data is structured according to the XDM schema in AEP and that the timestamp, _id, and other contextual fields are passed with your events. Additionally, ensure that the data types in your events match those defined in your schema. Mismatches, such as sending a string instead of a date, can lead to ingestion errors because the data cannot be validated against the schema.  
2. Identity Management: Properly configured identities (like email or customer ID) are critical for profile stitching. Inconsistent identities can lead to fragmented profiles, which will affect segmentation and personalization, meaning you should plan our identities to make the most out of use cases.  
3. Consent Considerations: Experience Events can include fields for tracking user consent. Ensure that events align with privacy and consent regulations and that data is handled according to user preferences.  

Experience Events are foundational to capturing meaningful interactions in Adobe Experience Platform. Follow best practices in schema setup for data consistency and leverage Experience Events to bring your AEP use cases to life.  

Have ideas or Edge Data Collection concepts that you would like explained as part of this series? Let us know in the comments and we’ll dive into those topics next!