{"id":36,"date":"2011-08-04T04:26:04","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T04:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitaldatatactics.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2015-08-22T16:07:14","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T16:07:14","slug":"form-analysis-pitfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/04\/form-analysis-pitfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Omniture Form Analysis Pitfalls \u2013 How to Avoid and Optimize"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an Omniture plugin, Form Analysis, that will automatically flag which form field a user last touched before abandoning a form. Sounds great, right? This post<\/a>, which does a great job of going over setting up the plugin, even claims the plugin will make you an office hero! The problem is, this plugin is inherently Evil. And not the good kind<\/a>of evil. We\u2019d like to tell you how to avoid the evil and keep your Form Analysis on the side of Good.<\/p>\n

This plugin is\u00a0notorious\u00a0for being implemented incorrectly, and the implications go beyond just one report not working. Since the plugin sends a custom link call (s.tl()<\/em>) each time a user abandons a form, it has the potential to eat up your secondary server calls (which you pay Omniture for). A recent client of mine has accidentally set one extra secondary server call on every single page view since 2008 because of this plugin.\u00a0Sending two server calls (one with the click of a link and one on the load of the next page) so close together has been known to cause problems- every once in a while, the two calls compete and only one makes it through to Omniture, decreasing data accuracy. Worst case scenario, the plugin can actually break your form.<\/p>\n

And what bugs me most- and this is in no way the fault of the plugin- is that folks use this as a safety crutch: they know they should optimize forms, so they put effort into setting up form tracking, then pat themselves on the back for \u00a0job well done. But, feeling comfortable that the data is there, they don\u2019t take it to the next step and actually optimize their forms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this situation, you\u2019d be better off skipping the plugin and go right to the \u201coptimize your form\u201d step by using your God-given intelligence. Use common sense. Think like a user: keep forms simple and easy to use<\/a>. Simply running a plugin or tool will do nothing to improve your forms- remember, brains are more important than tools.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, the plugin has much potential to do good. You just have to put some thought into it. Educate yourself on using this plugin and you can get great value out of it. To help you, here are some implementation pitfalls to avoid:<\/p>\n

1. POTENTIAL PROBLEM: TRACKING THE WRONG FORMS<\/h3>\n

The configuration of the plugin includes two critical variables:<\/p>\n

s.formList=\u201d”<\/em>
\ns.trackFormList=false<\/em><\/p>\n

When trackFormList is set to true, it will only track forms specified (using the form\u2019s HTML \u201cname\u201d attribute) in the formList (if formList is blank, then nothing will be tracked). So far so good. When set to false, the plugin will track every form on your site that is NOT specified in the formList. This includes:<\/p>\n