Measuring Errors via Error Tracking in Omniture SiteCatalyst
Errors, on any site, can cause major problems for end users causing them to leave and potentially never return. Understanding which errors occurred, where they come from, and how often users are experiencing them can potentially uncover areas that if addressed can lead to increased conversions/page consumption. One question that comes from this is how are these errors affecting my bottom conversion? Below is an example of how to figure this out.What you need:
- one (1) eVar
- ability to pass new value to s.pagename
What to do:
- If your site passes a query string that states when an error has occurred (i.e. www.xyz.com/?error=12345) then grab that value (you can leverage the getQueryStringParam plugin from Omniture) and pass that into the pagename variable. Then you can see pathing via page name for what happens when users encounter errors (i.e. what paths do users take when they encounter an error).
- If your site doesn’t pass a value, (i.e. the page just refreshes but the URL remains the same) you can develop logic that says when an error occurs and is present, fire off an Omniture call to capture the s.pagename change. You will need to work with your developers on creating the logic to handle that.
- Configure an eVar via the ADMIN section to act as a “counter” eVar. You will need to pass “+1″ each time an error occurs. It will then count the occurrences for the errors that happen. Creating a calculated metric for conversion % will allow you to see the conversion rate by number of errors received.
Once this is in place you can see the most frequent errors by page by taking a look at page views report, filtering on the error page name and then sorting by page views. Note: This can be used to report on many errors that occur on the site (e.g. broken links, non-functioning shopping cart, 404 or page not found and product not available).A very helpful tool in getting to the bottom of how errors influence customer behavior and patterns.
Written by:
Dorian D. Regester
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Adam Greco made a valid point that I wish to add here. This is Adam’s point:Just an FYI…On point #3 above, you cannot create calculated metrics based upon Counter eVars so I would suggest you set a Counter Success Event when Errors occur if you want to use that in a metric.Thanks Adam for the head’s up.
I haven’t tried this but would the Instances metric specific to the counter eVar not be what is intended to be used to create the calculated metric? Subject of course to all Adam’s warnings regarding the Instances metric in all it’s guisesBrian
Thank you so very much for this posting. It helped me at my job.