All about Merchandising eVars

What are Merchandising eVars?

• Imagine you're shopping online, browsing through different products like clothes, shoes, or electronics. Now, imagine the website keeping track of everything you're looking at and everything you end up buying. That's where Merchandising eVars come in.
• "eVars" are variables in Adobe analytics which are like little boxes where websites can store information about what you're doing on their site. But Merchandising eVars are special because they focus specifically on what you're buying or interested in buying.
• So, when you're checking out a pair of shoes, for example, the website uses Merchandising eVars to remember details like the shoe's name, color, size, price, and even whether you added it to your cart or not.

How do Merchandising eVars work?

• When measuring the success of external campaigns or external search terms, you typically want a single value to receive credit for any success events that occur. For example, if a customer clicks a link in an email campaign to visit your website, all purchases made as a result should be credited to that campaign.
• What about events that are driven by internal search or by category browsing when a customer looks for multiple items? For example, a customer searches your site for "goggles", then adds a pair to their cart:

• Before checkout, the customer searches for "winter coat", then adds a down jacket to the to their cart:

• When the visitor completes this purchase, you would have an internal search for "winter coat" credited with the purchase of a pair of goggles (assuming the eVar uses the default allocation of ‘Most recent’). Good for "winter coat", but bad for marketing decisions:

• Merchandising eVars let you assign the current value of an eVar to a product at the time a success event takes place. This value remains tied to that product, even if one or more new values are later set for that particular eVar.
• If merchandising is enabled for the eVar in the previous example, the search term "goggles" is tied to the snow goggles, and the search term "winter coat" is tied to the down jacket. Merchandising eVars allocate revenue at the product level, so each term receives credit for the amount of revenue for the product to which the term was associated:

How are Merchandising eVars different from Normal eVars?

• Normal eVars are like general-purpose memory boxes that websites use to store information about what you're doing on their site. They can track things like which pages you visit, how long you stay on each page, and where you came from before landing on the site. These eVars are more focused on tracking your overall behaviour and engagement with the website, rather than specifically what products you're looking at or buying.
• Merchandising eVars, on the other hand, are specialized memory boxes that focus specifically on tracking information related to products and purchases. They're designed to capture details about the products you're interested in, such as their names, categories, prices, and whether you added them to your shopping cart or bought them. Merchandising eVars help websites understand customers' shopping preferences, which products are popular, and how people make purchasing decisions.

What are the different ways of setting Merchandising eVars?

In Adobe Analytics, both Product Syntax and Conversion Variable Syntax are used within Merchandising eVars (conversion variables) to capture data related to products.

However, they serve slightly different purposes:

1. Product Syntax : Product syntax is the standard approach, which requires you to set the eVar within the product string. It works by “binding” an eVar value to a specific product ID, and has a predetermined list of standard ecommerce events where binding can occur, such as prodView, cartAdd, and purchase. This is the easier method to understand, but it requires developers to set the value only when these specific ecommerce events occur. It’s generally used for discounts, product attributes, or other product-specific data that are available in the same hit as the product they’re bound to.

Example: Suppose you have an eVar named "Product Details" using Product Syntax. You can capture data like this:

• Product Name: "Nike Air Max 90"
• Product SKU: "123456"
• Product Category: "Footwear"
• Product Price: "$120.00"

2. Conversion Variable Syntax : Conversion Variable Syntax is used to capture data related to the shopping experience or transaction as a whole, rather than individual product details. It is often used to track overarching information about the purchase, such as order ID, total revenue, shipping method, etc. Product Finding Method and Internal Search Term are great examples — you may not have that browsing data available on the Product Detail Page (PDP), but you still want to understand how the user discovered that product. Simply, it associates the eVar with a product only if a binding event occurs. You can select the events that act as binding events.

Example: Suppose you have an eVar named "Purchase Details" using Conversion Variable Syntax. You can capture data like this:

• Order ID: "987654"
• Total Revenue: "$1000.00"
• Shipping Method: "Express"
• Payment Method: "Credit Card"

In summary, Product Syntax is used to capture detailed information about individual products, while Conversion Variable Syntax is used to capture broader transaction-related data at the point of conversion. Both types of variables are important for comprehensive analysis of e-commerce transactions and user behaviour.

Helpful resources to understand Merchandising eVars in greater detail:

1. https://webanalyticsfordevelopers.com/2014/04/01/how-to-use-merchandising-variables/
2. https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/components/dimensions/evar-merchandising