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cathyw49544988
cathyw49544988
New Participant
October 6, 2017
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Props and eVar

  • October 6, 2017
  • 13 replies
  • 13827 views

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

    Best answer by Alexis_Cazes_

    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:

    • Prop
      • Expire on hit (a hit is a row in a data feed). Cannot persist further than the hit. This means that if you want to attribute an event to a prop you need to do it in the same analytics server call
      • Only has linear allocation. So all metrics (events in data feed) that you apply to a prop reports will use linear allocation
      • Pathing can be enable on any props. This means that you can see the sequential order of the values that have been sent. For best result, the prop needs to be specified in all analytics server calls. If a server call is missing the value then it will count as an exit from the path.
      • You can also use a prop as a list prop to send multiple values but I prefer to use list variables as you can assign different allocations
    • Evar
      • The expiration can be set to what you want: hit, visit, never, after x days, when a specific event is sent etc....
      • The allocation can be set to:
        • Most recent (last touch): the most recent values sent to this eVar will persist (see expiration), until expiration end or new value is set. When an eVar is set (via server call) it will be in its corresponding evar column in data feed. And the persisting value will be set in post_evar. If using processing rules then only post_evar will be set. To see instances of the evar chec post_event_list and check for corresponding numeric id of the evar.
        • First touch: the first value send via sever call will persist until expiration. Even if you send new value it will not overwrite first value sent. Reset at expiration
        • Linear: all values send via server calls will get credit for the event when sent.
      • You can also use merchandising evars. More complex and won't go in details here.
      • You can also set an evar as a counter evar.
      • More details

    13 replies

    Show previous replies
    frankd55973318
    frankd55973318
    New Participant
    October 9, 2017

    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.

    marion33678522
    marion33678522
    New Participant
    October 9, 2017

    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

    Alexis_Cazes_
    Alexis_Cazes_Accepted solution
    New Participant
    October 7, 2017

    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:

    • Prop
      • Expire on hit (a hit is a row in a data feed). Cannot persist further than the hit. This means that if you want to attribute an event to a prop you need to do it in the same analytics server call
      • Only has linear allocation. So all metrics (events in data feed) that you apply to a prop reports will use linear allocation
      • Pathing can be enable on any props. This means that you can see the sequential order of the values that have been sent. For best result, the prop needs to be specified in all analytics server calls. If a server call is missing the value then it will count as an exit from the path.
      • You can also use a prop as a list prop to send multiple values but I prefer to use list variables as you can assign different allocations
    • Evar
      • The expiration can be set to what you want: hit, visit, never, after x days, when a specific event is sent etc....
      • The allocation can be set to:
        • Most recent (last touch): the most recent values sent to this eVar will persist (see expiration), until expiration end or new value is set. When an eVar is set (via server call) it will be in its corresponding evar column in data feed. And the persisting value will be set in post_evar. If using processing rules then only post_evar will be set. To see instances of the evar chec post_event_list and check for corresponding numeric id of the evar.
        • First touch: the first value send via sever call will persist until expiration. Even if you send new value it will not overwrite first value sent. Reset at expiration
        • Linear: all values send via server calls will get credit for the event when sent.
      • You can also use merchandising evars. More complex and won't go in details here.
      • You can also set an evar as a counter evar.
      • More details
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