Digital Velocity London 2017: All About The Data

© 2017 Tealium Inc. All rights reserved. | 1© 2017 Tealium Inc. All rights reserved. | 1


It’s All About The DataSteve Lake


Some Data About Me!

{

Name: “Steve Lake”,

Job_title: “Deployment Engineer (Tealium EMEA)”,

Years_at_Tealium: 3,

Years_in_IT_Industry: 25,

Number_of_Digital_Velocities: 3,

Hair_going_grey: True

}


*Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/data

Overview• What is Data?

• All about the data layer

• Handling and manipulating Data

• Extension scope

• Sending data to tags

• Attributes, and their scope in UDH

• How UDH gets it’s data

• What UDH does with the data

• What does it all mean?

• Questions


What is Data?

“Things known or assumed as facts, making the

basis of reasoning or calculation*”

*Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/data


All about the data layer

*Source: https://tealium.com/what-is-a-data-layer/

The data layer is the

behind-the-scenes

structure that web sites

and mobile apps tap

into for timely and

consistent visitor data.

It sits between the

experience layer and

application layer


All About The DataLayer

Website “Source” code

• May be hardcoded

• May be fed from the CMS

• Contains different data types in one JSON

object, usually called utag_data

• Can use other native data layers

var utag_data = {

sitename : "Steves demo web site",

pagetype : "homepage",

content_type : "demo",

id_num : 97147,

something_else : true,

hiphip: ["homepage","demo","test"]

}



Within TiQ.

• UDO Variables

• Querystring Parameters

• FirstParty cookies

• Javascript Variables

• MetaData Elements

• AudienceStream Attributes



On page

• utag_data object contains all the TiQ variables

from the data layer tab

• It also contains calculated variables from DOM

elements (dom.referrer dom.url etc.)

• Can be dynamically updated and re-sent to tags

when required. Typically on events such as

button clicks or form submits



In UDH

• All of the TiQ variables are brought in to UDH

as “event attributes”

• You can add extra event attributes for data

coming from other sources (vdata pixels, app

sdk etc)

• You can ‘enrich’ UDH-created event attributes

to enhance and build new data for processing

• Other data sources for UDH could be vdata or

omnichannel


Handling and manipulating Data

Data can be transformed and manipulated using extensions in TiQ or enrichments in UDH

Built in extensions for transforming data:

• Lower-Casing

• Set Data Values

• Persist Data Value

• Previous Page

• Join Data Values

• Data Layer Enrichment

• Lookup Table

• Pathname Tokenizer

• Crypto Extension

• Ecommerce

• Channels

• Currency Converter

And of course, Javascript Extension


Extension scope

Extensions can have different ‘scope’ which determines what the extension code is

associated with, as well as when it runs.

• Pre-loader – runs before the rest of the utag.js – before the server-side data layer is read,

and before load rules.

• All Tags – runs for all of the tags

• DOM Ready – waits for the DOM Ready flag from the browser

• Scoped to a specific tag – only runs for that (or those) tag(s)

• You can also chose when they are run – After Load Rules (default), Before Load Rules, After

Tags, Run Once before load rules, run once after load rules, run once after tags.*

* Requires utag version 4.38 or higher


Sending data to tags

Data can be sent via Mappings.

Required data depends on the tag

Ecommerce data picked up automatically

Collect tag automatically collects as much as it can


Attributes, and their scope in UDH

Data in UDH is stored in “attributes”

Attributes have “scope” which relates to how long they are stored

Event Attributes are stored

just until that single event is

processed

Visit Attributes are stored

until the end of visit

Visitor Attributes are kept

for the lifetime of the

visitor’s profile

Omnichannel are similar to

Event attributes but for

Omnichannel data


Types of Attributes – Event Attributes


Types of Attributes – Visit Attributes


Types of Attributes – Visitor Attributes


Types of Attributes – Visitor Attributes


How UDH gets it’s data

Data in UDH is stored in “attributes”

Attributes have “scope” which relates to how long they are stored

Event data is received from the Collect tag’s POST request (website data),

or from the Tealium SDK’s collect mechanism, or a Visitor Data API (Vdata)

pixel or POST.

Omnichannel data is received from a configured Omnichannel CSV file.

• 1 row in the file = 1 event in UDH

• Checks for new files every 15 minutes


What UDH does with the data - Enrichments

Enrichments depend on the type of attribute as well as the attribute’s scope, but they can

be thought of as tools to set and manipulate the data stored in that attribute.

A simple example of this would be to store the value of an event attribute in a visitor

attribute – getting email address from a form, or adding the current purchase value on an

order event to a ‘lifetime order value’ attribute, or just setting a badge.

More complex examples – you could get a visitor’s top 5 favourite browsed products on

your site, or the amount of time passed since their first visit.


What UDH does with the data - Rules

Rules are the conditions that determine whether enrichments should be done.

You can set rules based on standard ‘and – or’ type logic and make them as simple or as

complex as you want.

Rules, by default, are “dependency checked” meaning they will make sure to run in order

if you have one rule that relies on an enrichment set by another rule

You cannot create cyclical rules.


What UDH does with the data - Audiences

Audiences are segments that can have actions applied to them.

• They are effectively filters, and behave in a very similar way to rules.

• You set “and/or” conditions to model the audience criteria

• An individual can join and leave and rejoin an audience multiple times


What UDH does with the data - Connectors

Actions in connectors are fired when a visitor either

• Joins an audience

• Leaves an audience

• Is in an audience at the beginning of a visit

• Is in an audience at the end of a visit, regardless of if they were at the beginning of the

visit

• Were not in the audience at the beginning of the visit, but are at the end of the visit

• An event matches an event stream (cloud delivery only)

“End of visit” actions can have delays set, after the delay the audience gets re-evaluated

Most connectors need a ‘visitor id’ key to match individuals between systems, this can

mean cookie syncing, or that you must already have certain data available.


What does it all mean?

This means you can take data from all sources as event attributes, process them all in

real-time, combine them with omnichannel data, stitch them together with previous data

relating to that individual, and use all that information to drive marketing campaigns, enrich

the user experience, and enrich the data in your other systems.


Questions?


Thank youSteve Lake

Data & Analytics

Digital Velocity London 2017: All About The Data