So, you can’t mix eVars and sProps right… But you still want to know certain things like what pages were viewed from visitors conducting a search, or which campaigns are driving most page views – and you don’t have Discover.
Well, there’s two parts to this post and a bunch of answers…so read on.
Page View Success Event
Firstly, set up a Page View Success Event.
Relatively simple concept. Set a success event every time a page viewed. It will result in a report-specific count of pages (and should be very close to actual page views), BUT, you can see it on Conversion Reports…such as Campaign Reports, or Search Reports.
And it’s easy to implement into your s_code:
/* append page velocity to the existing event, or set a new event */
if(s.events){
s.events = s.events + “,” + “event13”;
}else{
s.events = “event13”;
}
In the above example, I’m using event13 to be my Page View Success Event. In SiteCatalyst admin, I’ve created the success event and called it Page Velocity. The event is created as a Counter type event.
The code basically says that if s.events is already populated with a value, then append it with “,event13”. If s.events wasn’t populated, then just set it as event13.
Don’t forget to use the comma…you don’t want to mess up all your production events do you.
Now, every time a page is viewed, s.events will be either appended to, or set distinctly.
Ok – pretty straightforward – and pretty boring stuff.
But now, let’s open a campaign report to start with and add the metric “Page Velocity” to it.
Next, I created a calculated metric – CT/PVs, being Page Velocity / Click Throughs – a rudimentary engagement value. What it suggests is that Organic traffic views about 5 pages per click through, versus nearly 14 pages from traffic that comes from Social Media sites. In case you’re wondering how we got Social Media sites, we use the Unified Traffic Sources VISTA rule. You can also drill down on this report through your SAINT classifications.
So, now we are able to see Page View counts against conversion reports.
Let’s take it one step further.
Page Views by Campaign
Suppose you want to see what pages they view by campaign.
By default, SiteCatalyst won’t allow you to see that, but there are plenty of reasons why you actually need it. From campaign reports, to search keyword reports – you could benefit from knowing pages viewed by that segment. If you don’t have Discover, this is one thing that is somewhat frustrating.
Ah, but you can do it, although it’s a bit more work, but let’s walk through it.
Firstly, you need to store PageNames into an eVar. Once you’ve done that, you’re set. It’s also best to create an s.prop at the same time you create the eVar.
/* Set the s.prop as Page Name*/ if(!s.prop19) s.prop19=s.pageName; /* Set the PageName eVar */ if(s.prop19&&!s.eVar19) s.eVar19=s.prop19;
In the above code, I’ve used s.prop19 to set my pagename (so that I can use it in reports later). I’ve also set my eVar19 to be the same as my prop19 (which is pageName)
Set these up in the Admin console as well in SiteCatalyst. I named my conversion variable “Pagename (conv)” so that I can distinguish it in segment managers.
Right, now you can breakdown your campaigns (because by default Campaigns have Full Subrelations enabled on them), by Page Velocity, and then by Pagename (conv).
For example:
So in the 5×5 example above, visitors from Organic Search viewed around 1.5 million pages, of which, around 200,000 were to our homepage. Click on the Search Organic link in the report and you can drill down further.
Obviously, I’ve just used overall campaign traffic in the above example. You can also drill down on your campaign reports, through your SAINT classifications to, say, a creative element, and see what pages were viewed from people who clicked through from that element.
Now, here’s another example.
Internal Search Traffic
Let’s assume you track your internal search keywords. I know you all do, because they are a gold-mine of information. Make sure though that you track them in both an s.prop and an eVar. Why? Most people track them as just an s.prop, which gives you straight-forward counts of keywords. But as an eVar, you can also then see conversions against those keywords, and, with the changes you’ve just made above, you will probably be able to see what pages are viewed following a keyword search.
However, you will need to set up Full Subrelations on your eVar.
The above shows that on a particular day, there were 242 page views following a search for the word “bookshop”. The pages visited are shown in the image to the right.
So, through simple code changes, we’ve successfully managed to get some visibility on activity within conversion reports.
Hope that all helps.
