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aagk123
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March 17, 2022
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When to breakdown by evar and prop?

  • March 17, 2022
  • 2 replies
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When to breakdown by evar and prop? For example I am trying to find which error message occurred on which page. So should I use evar(pagename) and breakdown by prop(error message) or should both be evar or prop ?

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Best answer by yuhuisg

The main consideration about which dimension to breakdown by is whether the values of the dimensions had been tracked together in the same hit.

  • Props can only report values with hits where the values were set.
  • eVars can report values that weren't necessarily set with hits. Instead, eVar values are determined by the combination of the eVar's allocation and expiration settings.

Here's an example:

(where eVar1's allocation = "Most Recent", expiration = "Visit")

  1. Hit 1 (pageview): Page = A, eVar1 = page section X
  2. Hit 2 (custom link): Link Name = foo, prop1 = main_menu

With just these 2 hits, you can report the following:

  • Page "A": Pageviews = 1, Occurrences = 1, Visits = 1
  • prop1 "main_menu" instances = 1, Occurrences = 1, Visits = 1
  • eVar1 "page section X" instances = 1, Occurrences = 2, Visits = 1

And the following breakdowns are valid:

  • Page x eVar1 - because of Hit 1
  • Link Name x prop1 - because of Hit 2
  • Link Name x eVar1 - because of Hit 2 and also the eVar set in Hit 1

Hope that helps you get started!

2 replies

yuhuisg
Community Advisor
yuhuisgCommunity AdvisorAccepted solution
Community Advisor
March 18, 2022

The main consideration about which dimension to breakdown by is whether the values of the dimensions had been tracked together in the same hit.

  • Props can only report values with hits where the values were set.
  • eVars can report values that weren't necessarily set with hits. Instead, eVar values are determined by the combination of the eVar's allocation and expiration settings.

Here's an example:

(where eVar1's allocation = "Most Recent", expiration = "Visit")

  1. Hit 1 (pageview): Page = A, eVar1 = page section X
  2. Hit 2 (custom link): Link Name = foo, prop1 = main_menu

With just these 2 hits, you can report the following:

  • Page "A": Pageviews = 1, Occurrences = 1, Visits = 1
  • prop1 "main_menu" instances = 1, Occurrences = 1, Visits = 1
  • eVar1 "page section X" instances = 1, Occurrences = 2, Visits = 1

And the following breakdowns are valid:

  • Page x eVar1 - because of Hit 1
  • Link Name x prop1 - because of Hit 2
  • Link Name x eVar1 - because of Hit 2 and also the eVar set in Hit 1

Hope that helps you get started!

Pablo_Childe
Community Advisor
Pablo_ChildeCommunity Advisor
Community Advisor
March 20, 2022

Hi this really depends on what you want to understand as both could potentially apply.

s.prop think of it as more hit/instance based. eVar think of it as more session based.

 

In your case if prop is page name and you want to see how many time an error message shows up then a 2nd prop could be used. (this limits it to that page)

 

Now lets think of it this way, you have a prop for page name, but now you have users with 3 types of error messages and you want to see what other pages those users go to after any of the 3 error messages then use evar(its session based so allow you to follow each error type user journeys)

 

GLTU

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