Variable Limitations within Omniture SiteCatalyst
Omniture SiteCatalyst is a robust analytics package that provides great out of the box tracking capabilities. However, there are a few limitations with the variables that all users should be aware of and know about when looking to tweak, add or understand why variables are behaving the way that they are.
Below is a bulleted writeup of what is allowed within each captured variable within SiteCatalyst:
s.events
- Only use commas when separating multiple success event values (i.e. on the search results page, you pass event1 for the page view and event2 for the search results return, you would separate these with a comma).
- Only use colons to separate the success event from the serialization value. Event serialization de-duplicates the events that are being captured.
- Events are case sensitive and must be sent according to the guidelines for events (i.e. event10, scRemove, event1:08-10-2010, etc).
- Use ASCII only.
- Do not use any HTML tags.
- Do not use newline, tab or carriage return characters.
s.Props (traffic) and s.eVars (commerce/conversion):
- Only use ASCII characters that range from 0-127. If you use ASCII codes above 127, make sure that muti-byte characters are enabled as well as the s.charSet variable is populated with the appropriate value.
- Do not use any HTML tags (make sure to pass all values without any tags i.e. <u></u>, or %20).
- Do not use newline, tab or carriage return characters. These are (0x0A), (0×09) and (0x0D) respectively.
- Can only be 100 bytes in length.
- s.Props are case sensitive (i.e. if “dog” and “Dog” are captured, they both are treated as different values within SiteCatalyst). s.eVars are case insensitive.
s.Products:
- Only use a comma or semi-colon when separate elements within the product or advertising string (as media clients can use the s.products string to capture ad impression. This is demonstrated in a previous post entitled: Tracking Advertising Effectiveness).
- Do not pass any currency symbols within this variable.
- Remove any vertical pipes, equal signs or HTML tags.
- This is case sensitive so ensure you set everything being passed to this to lowerCase via the javascript function.
- This is limited to 100 bytes for each associated category and product that is passed.
- When passing quantity within the variable, ensure that the value is a long integer.
- When passing price, make sure that it is a double.
- Only use ASCII characters that range from 0-127.
- Refrain from using any HTML tags.
- Avoid using newline, tab or carriage return characters.
hierarchy (s.hier variable):
- Only use a delimiter (i.e. “/” or “>”) to separate the various levels of the hierarchy.
- This variable is allowed 255 bytes for each level.
- This variable is case sensitive.
- Use ASCII characters.
- Do not use any HTML tags (make sure to pass all values without any tags i.e. <u></u>, or %20).
- Do not use newline, tab or carriage return characters. These are (0x0A), (0×09) and (0x0D) respectively.
s.pageType variable:
- Only use ASCII characters that range from 0-127.
- Do not use any HTML tags.
- Do not use newline, tab or carriage return characters.
- Pass only the error value within this variable.
For the non mentioned variables (i.e. s.channel, s.server, s.purchaseID, s.state, s.zip, s.referrer), the following applies:
- Only use ASCII characters, do not use any HTML tags and do not use newline, tab or carriage return characters.
- s.purchaseID can only be 20 bytes, URL can only be 256 bytes.
- URL (and s.referrer) are not case sensitive.
- s.channel, s.server, s.purchaseID, s.state and s.zip are all case sensitive.
Written by:
Dorian D. Regester
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What’s being analyzed…The behaviors of users, as expressed by what they search, where they click, and what they transact?
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