By Sarah Owen, Adobe Analytics Champion and Sr. Marketing Manager at H&R Block
To keep your implementation firing on all cylinders, you can either attend Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew training or you can try out these five tips (no helmet or fire suit required when trying out the tips).
Trend Your Variables
While it is great to see data in your variables, by trending the data over the last few month or breaking it down by month, you’ll be able to quickly verify that data has been recently collected. Or you may see that a few weeks ago, with that last release, data stopped being collected.
To trend your event variables:
- In Analytics Workspace, open a project.
- In the left-hand column, click on the Component icon. Use the search box at the top to find a specific event.
- Click on the specific event. Drag it onto the Freeform table and drop it in the metric location (column).
- The dimension (rows) should default to Day. Feel free to keep it as Day or change it to Week or Month.
- Change the date range to be the last 6 months.
- Look at each row to see if there is a value greater than zero (zero means no data was collected).
- Repeat this process for each of your events.
To trend your prop or eVar variables:
- Click on Components and select New Segment.
- Use the search box at the top of the left-hand column to find a specific dimension (aka prop or eVar) in the left-hand column.
- Click on the specific prop or eVar and drag it into the Definition portion of the segment builder.
- Change operator to be “exists”.
- Keep the segment at the “hit” level.
- Give the segment a meaningful name.
- Save the segment.
- Add another Freeform table.
- Use the search box at the top of the left-hand column to find the visits metric.
- Click on the visit metric. Drag it onto the Freeform table and drop it in the metric location (column).
- The dimension (rows) should default to Day. Feel free to keep it as is or change to Week or Month.
- Now, use the search box at the top of the left-hand column to find your newly created segment.
- Click on your segment. Drag it above the visits metric and drop it on top so the segment is stacked on the metric.
- Look at each row to see if there is a value greater than zero (zero means no data was collected).
- Repeat this process for each of your props and eVars.
Check-in On Your Classifications
Classifications are an amazing way to expand upon collected data. Two variables that typically have classification applied to them are the Product and Campaign variables. Product classifications include information like size, color, or department. And Campaign classifications include information such as creative, channel, and date. This additional information is very useful when analyzing data, that is unless “unspecified” is one of the top results. But if it is, don’t worry! Reach out to your product or marketing team to get the latest information and upload it!
To review classifications, please follow the “To trend your prop or eVar variables” steps above. Though instead of searching for and dragging in a prop or eVar, search for the classification name. You can either search for the classification name, like color, or you can search for the base variable name, like Product.
Comb Through Your Processing Rules
Love them or hate them, processing rules are quite handy and very powerful. Make sure to keep a close eye on them and remove them as soon as they are no longer needed. Sometimes processing rules are the quickest way to get a patch in place in order to not lose critical data. Once the long-term solution is put in place, the processing rule patch should be immediately removed.
To find the Processing Rules,
- Click on Admin in the very top nav.
- Click on Report Suites.
- Click on the Report Suite name that has the processing rules that need to be reviewed.
- Just above the Report Suites, there is an Edit Settings link. Hover or click on it.
- Click on General.
- Click on Processing Rules.
Now, expand each Processing Rule to understand what the rule is doing. You may instantly know if the rule continues to be necessary or you may need to reach out to others to determine if the rule is needed.
KonMari Your Rules & Data Elements
This one is inspired by organizing consultant Marie Kondo. At one time, that rule or data element you created in Launch (or other tag manager) spoke to your heart, or at least to the marketing pixel that you needed to implement. Once the campaign tied to that marketing pixel is over, that rule or data element may no longer have a purpose (no longer “spark joy”) and should be discarded.
If you aren’t sure if a rule or data element is needed, you can disable the rule or data element first and then later delete it.
To find the Rules within Launch,
- Click on Rules in the navigation.
- Click the checkbox beside the Rule and select Disable.
- Go through the typical deployment process.
To find the Data Elements within Launch,
- Click on Data Elements in the navigation.
- Click the checkbox beside the Data Element and select Disable.
- Go through the typical deployment process.
Or, you can find the rules and data elements in your other tag manager.
Update Your Extensions
If you use Launch, extensions are an excellent way to add functionality to your implementation. Keeping up-to-date on the current version of extensions ensures that you have access to the latest features and functions. While Adobe requests that all extension updates are backwards compatible, it is always good to QA the updated extension prior to publishing it to production.
There are two ways to know if an Extension that you are using has a new version,
- Within the Extension Catalog, there will be an Upgrade button on the extension.
- When using a feature of the Extension, there will be a notice that there is a newer version.
To update the Extension,
- Within your Launch Property, click on Extensions in the navigation.
- Click on the Upgrade button for the Extension you plan to update.
- Save the upgrade.
- Perform QA to ensure the upgrade works with the rest of your implementation.
- Once QA passes, go through the typical deployment process.
