4.7 DataLayer feedback: breadcrumb and loggedIn/guest

[TSP]

I currently send some datalayer-information in the themes of the forums I manage. 

I saw that you've implemented a datalayer-section and decided to take a peak at whether it would make sense for me to utilize that instead. Initial thoughts is that I'll likely just continue use my own code in our themes. 

The information we analyze the most in Google Analytics is these two things: 

• Comparing guests vs those logged in
• Which sections are most popular and traffic change etc. for each section

In your current implementation you only send information about the closest container. What I would suggest is that you also include the entire breadcrumb data in the default language.

Here’s an example of information I provide, when inside a topic in A Test Category/A Test Forum/Subforum. I provide the same breadcrumb data if viewing the forum, but the controller within the location variable would be forums instead of topic. 

dataLayer = [{
	'adblocker': adblock,
	'isLoggedIn': isLoggedIn,
	'location': {app:"forums", module:"forums", controller:"topic"},
	'isContentPage': isContentPage,
				
	'breadcrumb': ["A Test Category","A Test Forum","Subforum"],
	'breadcrumbObj': {"section1":"A Test Category","section2":"A Test Forum","section3":"Subforum"},
	'breadcrumbPath': 'A Test Category/A Test Forum/Subforum',

I have it duplicated a bit unnecessarily for … what was probably good reasons once upon a time.

When you have a large community with a lot of sections that each contain numerous forums, and subforums to subforums etc., it makes more sense for us to look at all traffic across all the subforums in a section and then go further down into specific forums from there. 

As for my other suggestions it would be to include whether the visitor is logged in or not. Currently you only sort of provide this information if PII is enabled, but I would suggest you just provide an additional true/false field by default, and not having to enable all PII to get data on guests vs logged in.

Edited May 24, 2022 by TSP

[Matt Finger]

Hello TSP, thanks for your feedback! I headed up the development of the Data Layer feature and had considered using an array as a breadcrumb property early on, though in an effort to get the feature deployed and fully functional we decided to table it for the time being!

That being said, the feature is still new and being expanded upon, so we appreciate feedback like this so we know which features are more desired!

[Matt Finger]

Additionally (I didn't see the bit about logged in status), there already is a logged_in data layer page property that is either 0 or 1, regardless of PII settings. It's disabled by default, but you should see it in the AdminCP > System > Settings > Data Layer > Properties (tab):

[Randy Calvert]

Hi Matt!  

Are you planning to build in additional support for event tracking such as making a commerce purchase, or tracking signups, etc?

[Matt Finger]

Hello Randy!

Yep, integrating Commerce Events and Properties is under consideration for Phase 2 so stay tuned! Also, for sign ups, see the account_register event in the AdminCP > ... > Data Layer > Events. It fires immediately after new registrations.