SiteCatalyst has entered the market with a stir. While Google Analytics, along with some others, was the most popularly used tool for web analytics till the recent past, the advent of SiteCatalyst has definitely encroached upon the loyal market for these tools. This has been because of the features that SiteCatalyst has brought along with it. Its advanced capabilities of reporting and robust data capture methodology have caught the fancy of many website owners.
PROPS, EVARS & EVENTS – AT THE CENTRE OF ALL THE ACTIVITY
The catalysts of this tool’s data capture abilities have been three elements – its Props, Evars and Events. If you are in the industry, you would have not missed upon these three variables, which are even termed as the fulcrum of the data collection methodology of SiteCatalyst. Props and Evars are custom variables. They capture and store data before it is sent to the data collection server. This is the only similarity between these two variables. For the rest, there are many dissimilarities on offer. While props is a traffic variable, Evars is a conversion variable. Also, while props need to be launched on individual pages, Evars are persistent variables and are, hence, omnipresent on the website. Events, on the other hand, are those variables which trigger the process of data collection. They intimate the other variables as to when the data has to be captured and stored.
PROPS – EXPLAINED IN DETAIL
These are property variables of SiteCatalyst whose core duty is to offer a count of the number of instances when each value has been sent to the web analytics tool. Therefore, certain events which are traffic related can be correlated with custom data to make the most of Props. This would help you in the development of custom reports. For example, if you are a fashion company; you need to find out about the most popular brand of yours. How would you do that? All you have to do is to allocate a traffic property to represent the various brands and implement the code. This way you will be able to avail the desired information. On the other hand, there are many other benefits that you can have with Props. You can know users’ navigation pattern, internal user search behaviour, segment traffic and segment visitors.
EVARS – FIND OUT WHAT LEADS TO YOUR EVENTS’ SUCCESS
For every website, there is one action of the visitors that can be termed as the success event. You might want someone to register on your site or purchase your service or offer his / her contact details. The success events can vary from one site to another. Evars helps you identify those specific attributes or actions, on your website, which led to the occurrence of the success events. Thus for example, you might have created a promotional banner on the site and a visitor clicked on it and registered with you. In that case, it is Evars which will tell you that the showstopper was that promotional banner. That lets you know of what is working and what is not.
EVENTS – TELL SITECATALYST OF WHEN YOU NEED THE DATA
Events decide when data has to be captured. Therefore, you might wish to specify that the data should be captured when users land on a particular page or when they register with the site or how many times a particular product has been viewed.
All these three, hence, play a pertinent role in the success of SiteCatalyst.
