I’ve mentioned before how much I love that Launch* can “stack” all sorts of rules- by which I mean multiple rules of varying scopes can combine together into a single analytics beacon.
This means (using an example from that old post) I can have a global rule that sets my universal variables, a rule for search results, a rule for filters, a rule for null search results, and a rule that fires the beacon, all resulting in a single beacon where all the variables might be coming from a different rule. I call this a “Rule Sandwich”:
That particular example may be a bit overkill, but this ability to divide up your variables by scope can be key to a scaleable implementation.
As a programmer, there are some coding best practices we should all try to follow:
- Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY): If you can find a single place to set a variable, do it. Don’t set site section in every page that has a site section- set it in a global place that can dynamically set the right value from the data layer.
- Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS): Daisy-chaining Direct Call Rules can quickly complicate an implementation and introduce multiple points of failure. Huge Switch statements in code can make it hard to find specific dimensions or events.
- Principal of Least Astonishment: People who encounter your setup shouldn’t have any surprises. If the next person who signs in to your Launch property says “oh, wow” or needs a “eureka” moment, you may have over-engineered things.
Following those principals, here’s the “Sandwich” set up I most like to use:
The bottom slice: Global Variables
My first rule sets my universal variables- things like site section, campaign, login state, user ID, etc. Stuff where I can say “if it exists in the data layer, I want it in my beacon”. It is set up to fire on all triggers that might end up in an analytics beacon. If you’re using the Adobe Client Data Layer extension and all your rules are triggered by your ACDL data layer, then this can be pretty simple, thanks for “Listen to All Events”:
But I’ve also had setups like this:
I add “#1” to the trigger name and rule name to indicate that these are triggered with a rule order of 1:
Which means for any given trigger**, this will be the first rule to fire. In this rule, I set any variables that can be applied globally- usually things like page name, site section, page type, language, etc.
**A note about sequencing: the order for rules only applies when rules share a common trigger. If you have a rule that fires on DOM Ready, and a rule that fires on a “page view” event in your data layer when DOM Ready occurs, even if they happen at the exact same time, Launch won’t compare their order to see which comes first. The rules would either both have to be triggered on DOM Ready, or both triggered on the “page view” event.
The Analytics extension does a great job of keeping everything in sequence. In other words, if I have a rule with an order of 1 that sets analytics variables I can be confident that a rule with the same trigger with an order of 50 will apply its analytics variables only after the first rule has finished. (However, Custom Code blocks will not wait for earlier-ordered custom code blocks from other rules to finish. If I have a rule with an order of 1 that runs some script in a custom code action, I can’t know for sure that script will have finished before code in a separate rule with an order of 50 happens.)
You might ask “Why don’t you use the Adobe Analytics Extension’s global variables?”
The problem with these is they only evaluate once, when the extension first kicks in on page load (go upvote my idea if you, too, want it to behave differently). So if you clear variables, they disappear and won’t come back until the next page load. And if you try to pass new values- maybe the language preference changed, or maybe you have a SPA and need to pass a new page name- the extension won’t pick those up.
Many folks use the doPlugins function for this purpose, because it fires on every beacon. There’s a few reasons I avoid this when I can:
- I try to keep my variables out of code as much as possible- the more transparency in the interface, the better.
- I try to keep doPlugins light. With default settings, it runs on every click, whether that click results in a beacon or not.
- doPlugins is the LAST thing to fire before a beacon is sent to Adobe, meaning any customization I’ve done in other rules might be overwritten.
Which brings me back to my #1 rule that fires on all of my common triggers. I set my global variables, and that’s it- no sending a beacon (yet).
The middle of the sandwich- the “ingredients”
Next come all my sandwich ingredients: the rules that set variables based on more specific scenarios. Any logic that needs to only fire under certain conditions go here. It’s where I set events, set any user-action-specific dimension, and hard code any values.
These rules might be triggered by a page view under certain conditions (like “pageType of article”), or based on a specific event or element interaction.
So I might have a rule that fires on page view if the page type is equal to “article”:
(In theory, I could set something like content.title in my global variables rule, because it will only set if the data layer currently has a value, but I’d rather keep all my blog stuff together and not make my global rule evaluate data elements unless they’re needed.)
I may also use these rules to customize/fix anything that had been set in my global variables. In an ideal world, data layers would be perfect and we’d never have to “fix” anything in Launch. But this isn’t that ideal world. My global variables might set the page type as “search results”, then later I realize our other search results page has a page type of “search”. Obviously, I should go to the devs and ask them to make it consistent. But in the meantime, I can use an “ingredient” rule to overwrite what was set in my global variables rule.
Not everything merits its own rule. If the scope only calls for a single extra event to be set, I could probably just do that in my global rule with a conditional JavaScript statement. But something like Purchase Confirmation, which has its own product string, purchaseID, etc… that makes sense as an “ingredients” rule. I try to find a balance between not having too many rules, and not having any single rule be super complicated.
The top slice: Send Beacon and Clear Vars
For any situation where many rules might all contribute to the same beacon- for example, page views- you can have the top piece of the sandwich as a rule with an order of 100, which fires the beacon and clears the variables.
If you have global page view variables- stuff you want on all page views but not necessarily all beacons- you could also put them here.
Note, splitting the “set variables” (our ingredients) and the “send beacon” (our top slice) like this makes the most sense in a situation where you’ll have many potential rules all needing a beacon. Page Views is the best use case. Having a single separate “Send Beacon” rule makes it so if you have a few dozen page-specific Page Load rules, you don’t have to add the beacon and the clear vars action to all of them. It’s a time-saver, and a way to guarantee whatever the combination of ingredient rules, a single beacon will fire.
But in cases where there’s just one rule contributing to a beacon- something like a certain button click, for instance- then there isn’t much advantage to having a single “set variables” rule and a separate single “send beacon/clear vars” rule. You can combine your “ingredients” and your “top slice” into a single rule, like this:
Clear Variables makes sure that variables (and particularly events) from earlier beacons won’t accidentally get attached to something they don’t belong to. Different folks handle “Clear Variables” differently. Some people set it at the beginning of rules (or sequences of rules). I find it easiest to always set it any time I fire a beacon, so I don’t have to worry about where in the sequence of things I’m clearing my variables.
Put It All Together (Examples)
Following this approach, my rules list might look like this:
(I tend to not put “#50” in the name of rules- it’s the defaultiest option; it can be assumed if no other order is specified. I also don’t specify “clear vars” in rule names anywhere- to me, it’s implied with any beacon being sent. See my post about rule naming conventions.)
On my search results page (which fires on a “page view” ACDL event where page type=”search results”), these rules would fire, in this order:
- All Events | ACDL Any Event | Analytics: Set global vars #1
- Search Result Views | ACDL Page View | Analytics: Set vars (#50)
- All Page Views | ACDL Page View | Analytics: Send s.t, clear vars #100
On a Search Filter click, the following would fire:
- All Events | ACDL Any Event | Analytics: Set global vars #1
- Search Filters | ACDL Search Filter | Analytics: Set vars, send s.tl beacon (#50)
Conclusion
There are, of course, many “correct” ways to architect a TMS; this is just the one that has worked best for me across many organizations, particularly if they have a reliable event-driven data layer. I will say, it can get complicated if you’re using a wide variety of rule triggers, like page bottom, clicks on this but NOT clicks on that, form submission, element enters viewport, etc… the” “Top Slice”/Global Vars Rule’s list of triggers can get very unwieldy. And sadly, if you have a very Direct-Call-Rule-based implementation, since there is no out-of-the-box “fire on all direct calls”, you may find resorting to doPlugins is the simplest, most scaleable route. Your mileage may vary.
I’d love to hear what has worked for others!
No AI was used in this post. Images are good old-fashioned paid stock images.
*I’m still not going to call it “Adobe Experience Platform Data Collection Tags”.