Adobe Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that provides businesses with valuable insights into user behavior. Understanding its core components is crucial for leveraging its full potential. This article breaks down three fundamental elements of Adobe Analytics: props, eVars, and events, explaining their distinct roles and how they work together to paint a comprehensive picture of website activity.
Decoding Analytics: Props, eVars, & Events
Adobe Analytics uses a combination of variables to capture and organize data. These variables allow you to segment and analyze user interactions in meaningful ways, providing actionable insights into website performance. The three key variables are props, eVars, and events.
Props: Capturing Traffic Variables
Props, short for properties, capture traffic variables at a specific point in time. They are typically used to describe the current state of the page or visit, such as a page template, a site section level or an internal search term. Props are tied to a single hit and do not persist beyond that hit. You get up to 75 props (depending on your contract), 100 bytes each. Think of them as snapshots of information at a particular moment. Note: Adobe now recommends eVars for most use cases; props remain useful for hit-level values and list props. For example, a prop can store the page template ("product page") on each hit. This allows you to analyze traffic patterns and understand which page types are most visited.
eVars: Persistence and Conversion Tracking
eVars, short for conversion variables, offer persistent tracking across visits. Unlike props, eVars are assigned a value and retain that value throughout the visitor’s session or across multiple visits, depending on the expiration settings. Up to 250 eVars (depending on your contract), 255 bytes each; expiration and allocation are set in Report suite settings > Conversion variables. This makes them ideal for tracking conversion events and attributing success to specific marketing campaigns or user segments. For instance, if a user clicks on a banner ad and later completes a purchase, the eVar associated with that banner ad will retain its value, allowing you to attribute the conversion to that specific campaign even if the purchase occurs on a subsequent visit.
Events: Quantifying User Actions
Events measure specific user interactions on your website. They are used to quantify actions such as video plays, file downloads, button clicks, form submissions, cart additions or purchases. Custom events must first be configured under Success events in Report suite settings. Events provide valuable insights into user engagement and can be used to identify areas for improvement on your website. For example, tracking the number of times a "Contact Us" button is clicked can reveal the effectiveness of your call-to-action and help you optimize its placement or design. Unlike props and eVars, events are specifically designed to measure actions rather than describe attributes.
By understanding the distinct roles of props, eVars, and events, you can effectively leverage Adobe Analytics to gain a deeper understanding of user behavior, optimize your website’s performance, and ultimately achieve your business objectives. These three components work in harmony to provide a comprehensive view of website activity, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.