Funnel Spans 2 Domains - Cookies and s.linkInternalFilters set up

[ktzdan]

Hello there and thanks in advance...

I have a site, mysite.com, where users go to log in to their account.  That login/authentication page is hosted on https://login.myothersite.com.  After the user logs in they return to mysite.com.

Both sites are using the same report suite and SiteCatalyst 3rd-party cookie domain (d2.sc.omtrdc.net) however mysite.com is using s_code H.26 with:

s.trackExternalLinks=true;
s.linkInternalFilters="javascript:,mysite,mysite.com,mysite.custhelp.com";

AND login.myothersite.com is using H.24.4 with:

s.trackExternalLinks = false;
s.linkInternalFilters="javascript:,login.myothersite.com,mysite.com/register,mysite.net/register";

Here are my questions:

1.  In order for this cross-site login funnel to work I have to change:

• mysite.com's s_code file's s.linkInternalFilters to include login.myothersite.com
• myothersite.com's s_code file's s.trackExternalLinks = true; and remove the /register from the mysite.com and mysite.net entries in s.linkInternalFilters,  (/register is no longer in existence)

Is that correct?  Is there anything special that needs to be set since login.myothersite.com is on a secure server (https://login.myothersite.com)?

2.  I know there is the Internal Filters area in the Admin > General area of the UI.  I still want to see if users exit mysite.com and go to myothersite.com and vice-versa (I want to see myothersite.com users exit to mysite.com).  I would not add entries to this, correct?

3.  We are experiencing intermittent passing of the https://login.myothersite.com's eVars to the report suite.  These eVars are passed in a Manual Link Click.  This **could** be caused by a number of internal reasons (the eVars pull a value from a database and the value might not be pulled in time for the call to SiteCatalyst - they do not have a "check" or delay for this) but for SiteCatalyst troubleshooting is there anything else that should be looked at? Is there anything that could possibly be happening with the 3rd party cookie since the value is set on one domain and passed to the other?

My thought is this...I recognize that there are 2 different versions of the s_code.js here and H.26 fixes an issue with Manual Link tracking in WebKit browsers (Safari , Chrome and Firefox) - could that be contributing to the issue? When I create a segment where my Custom Link has a null value for the expected eVar I am seeing a great deal of WebKit browsers.  Also, I believe H.25 contains a new s_vi method for those users that block 3rd party cookies.

I know this is a super long post.  Even if you can contribute insight to one of my issues it would be wonderful!

Thanks again.

[Gigazelle]

Hello there! To answer your questions:

1. Correct.

2. If you want to see who goes from one site to another, I'd recommend using a pathing report. Since both domains are part of internal URL filters, attempting to include them in the external links report would be counter-intuitive.

3. If you're seeing intermittent passing of overlapping eVars, you'll definitely want to double check the implementation logic for the variables in question. Our servers populate the reports exactly as they're told, so the issue is guaranteed to be within your implementation of those variables. You can use a segment in the pages report to determine the exact pages these errant values are being passed in.

4. The issue of manual link tracking involves the fact that the link calls were not made at all - H26 restores that functionality with a slightly modified implementation.

[ktzdan]

Thank you for the reply! I have 2 follow up questions:

1. Not sure I understand your #2 answer above. To be clear I would NOT add entries to the Internal URL Filters in the Admin UI, correct? I would just add the sites to the s.code.js file's s.linkInternalFilters?

2. Once I make the change to the s.linkInternalFilters what do I look at in the reports to notice and verify the change? And in addition, in order for this cross-site funnel to work why exactly do I have to make these changes?

Thanks in advance.

[Gigazelle · Accepted solution]

The internal URL filters in the Admin UI and s.linkInternalFilters should pretty much always match - I don't know of a use case where the data coming out of that would be useful. If someone does have a valid use here in the community, by all means share your input.

The bottom line is that pages that send data to your report suite should match s.linkInternalFilters and Internal URL filters in the Admin Console. Once that's for done for sure, reporting becomes a lot easier.

There are several different reports you can look at to get the data you're looking for. The first report that comes to mind is the Next Pages report, which allows you to see the next pages user go to when on a specific page (such as your login page). The 'Entries' metric is available on many reports which can be used to your advantage as well.