Digital Velocity London 2017: All About The Data

It’s All About The Data
Steve 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

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 you
Steve Lake

Digital Velocity London 2017: All About The Data

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