I took some training classes and read some help pages and I still have question about those 2 types of variables:
1. For Props, they mentioned that it can hold path. I am wondering is that mean it can hold the path of visitor's journey. If I use prop to hold variable like URL, page name, then I will get the navigation reports ( like landing , exit, full path, next page etc ). Is this the meaning of path?
2. I read the document mentioned that the recent version, evar and prop are very close to each other. So for right now, which data I have to use prop, can nor use eVar? Please provide some examples
3. for eVar, they mentioned that it is a persistence variable which can be used to hold conversion related info. The interesting thing I saw was, we tracking a search page load as an event. we used a eVar to hold the search keyword. But in the evar report, for the keyword against visitors, then 99% are unspecified. Then I noticed that all the visits has this evar, if the user didn't visit the search page, then eVar is a null value, then showed as unspecified. Shouldn't the eVar report only include the visits load the search page?
4. Actually I really hope I can know more about how internal of adobe worked? How the persistent worked? Then I will know how should I use my variable. For example, when a event fire, some variable and event data will be saved to adobe server. The thing is, how evar can persistently show all the data for the conversion( like first touch, last touch), do they have a special meta-data to side track? I am just thinking in a database view, how this data is joined to show the conversion report.
Thanks
Solved! Go to Solution.
If you want to know how the data is stored and processed then the best way is for you to play with Data Feed. It is the most granular data that you can get.
Check all the columns you can get.
Check this section of documentation to see how the data and metrics are calculated.
This will allow you to understand the different layers of processing: Processing Order
Now in terms of prop and evar differences:
If you want to know how the data is stored and processed then the best way is for you to play with Data Feed. It is the most granular data that you can get.
Check all the columns you can get.
Check this section of documentation to see how the data and metrics are calculated.
This will allow you to understand the different layers of processing: Processing Order
Now in terms of prop and evar differences:
Hello Alexis !
Congrats on the great explanations !
I already knew all of that , but it's the first time I found a real abstract and short explanation.
It really helps understanding the data feed before explaining props and evars.
Cheers !
Mario
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When I comes to a Prop and a hit level eVar, what reason is there to use an eVar instead of a prop (other than having linear/participation options)?
Thanks.
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Use props:
Use evar:
might be other use cases but only these ones come to my mind right now.
Are you sure you can have numeric evars ?
It seems to me that only event can be numeric - I though they could only be counter or text.
For exemple, I won't be able to calculate the Mean of this :
Visit 1 :eVar42 = 4
Visit 2 : eVar42 = 5
Visit 3 :eVar42 = 6
Number of visits = 3
eVar42 instances = 3
Mean of Evar3 = (4+5+6)/3
Cheers,
Mario
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Alexis,
Could you please explain more about the " linear allocation "?
Thanks.
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What I meant by numeric evars is Counter evars, sorry for the misunderstanding.
See these articles:
https://webanalyticsfordevelopers.com/2014/10/21/counter-evars/
Counter eVars [Inside Omniture SiteCatalyst] | Adobe
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You can find some documentation about allocation here:
Say you have a visit with 5 pageviews, evar1 is last allocation and evar2 is linear:
Pages Prop1 Evar1 Evar2 Order
1 a aa qq 0
2 a bb ww 0
3 b cc ee 0
4 c dd rr 0
5 d ee rr 0
6 e ff rr 1
Prop1 report
prop order
a 1/6 + 1/6 = 2/6 = 0.333333
b 1/6 = 0.166667
c 1/6 = 0.166667
d 1/6 = 0.166667
e 1/6 = 0.166667
evar1 order
aa 0
bb 0
cc 0
dd 0
ee 0
ff 1
evar2 order
qq 1/6 = 0.166667
ww 1/6 = 0.16667
ee 1/6 = 0.16667
rr 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 3/6 = 1/2 = 0.5
Linear allocation means that all values that where sent prior the event get credit for the event. Each instance of a value get 1/n where n is the number of instance of values prior event
This linear and last allocation explanation on how evars work is great !
Im' gonna save it somewhere !
Keep the good teaching !
Cheers !
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Alexis,
This is very helpful. I still have a very basic question. As you described:
Pages Prop1 Evar1 Evar2 Order
1 a aa qq 0
2 a bb ww 0
3 b cc ee 0
4 c dd rr 0
5 d ee rr 0
6 e ff rr 1
In this case, we want to track event for order, you have a visit with 5 pageviews. So the order event is visit based. Is that the same as expired after a session?
So all the credit can be shared within this visit. I guess there must have another internal variable to track the unique visit info, correct?
Another question I have is, how to link Prop1, Evar1 and eVar2 with order event? From the example, we can see that the first 5 pageview without order. For example, Prop1 is URL, eVar1 is category and eVar2 is division ( something like this ), maybe we have those data from page load event. Then order event happen, in order to link the order with those 3 variables, I will need to setup those 3 variables when the order event fired. Is this correct?
Right now, I am trying to thinking thing like a table. Every time a rule fired, then a row of data will be written to database. If I didn’t setup a variable within that image, then for that row, that variable will be null value. Is this correct? But for the session, visitor ID those info is tracking automatically, correct? If this is the case, then I will know each time, if I want my event to link with any variable, I will have to set up those variables in my rule.
Thanks
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Visitor ID is tracked automatically. There are different ways a unique visitor is identified. See doc for data feed
By default the Adobe Analytics library should generate the unique visitor, so unless you send a custom one, you should not have to do anything.
Any event is hit based, it does not persist after the hit. For the event to be attributed to a value for an eVar or a prop then this value needs to be set in the adobe analytics server call.
Prop value do not persist after the hit (after the analytics server call), so if you want the order to be attributed to this value send you need to send it in the same hit or a hit prior the order in the visit.
For eVar it is can be different based on the allocation and expiration.
If the evar is set to expire to anything other than hit, then the value set in the evar will persist until expiration. Now the value that persist is directly tied to to allocation. If it is first alllocation, then the first value set in the evar will persist until expiration and all event sent while the value persist will be attributed to it. If it is last allocation then last value that was set will persist until expiration and same as for first all events will be attributed to it.
I would advise you to create a new post if you need more details as I think it differs from the initial question asked.
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Hi Alexis,
I read in this post that props can be associated with success events that occur later, and will be attributed according to the linear allocation principal.
However when reading the Adobe Help Comparing Props and eVars I read
This seems contradictory to your example of linear allocation.
Can you help me understanding this?
Thanks,
Sarah
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Hi Sarah,
The article that you referenced seems to be confusing to be honest.
I would suggest you to read these articles when it comes to how values of success events are allocated based on the allocation selected:
I think the article that you referenced fail to explain the importance of expiration and allocation in Adobe Analytics data processing. A prop which is a traffic variable will always expire on the hit and have linear allocation. That's it, which means that f you run a report and you want to know what is the true value of a success event is, you should not use a variable in the report that has linear allocation.
eVars when enabled by default will always have a last allocation (most recent) and I think 30 days expiration. As it has last allocation, when you apply a success event to this evar report, you will always get the true total for the specific evar value.
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