In this section you will learn:

How to correctly name custom variables in DigitalData.
How to correctly name events.

We strongly recommend that you name variables and events in the same style. This approach will greatly simplify your work with all analytics and marketing systems.

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Introduction

There are many methods for naming variables in programming languages. Each developer comes up with his own “standards”, understandable and convenient only to him. As a result, your analytics is filled with a bunch of dissimilar data that is difficult to understand and analyze.

At first glance it may not seem obvious, but there are a lot of names that could be used for the same user event or variable.

For example, the user’s authorization on the site can be called in different ways:

logged_in
logged in
Logged In
LoggedIn

Which one of these methods is correct?

To avoid long reflection on this issue and to engage in really important analytical issues, we have developed naming standards that will preserve order in the data.

These standards are designed to comply with 3 main principles:

Standardization
Convenience
Clarity

How to name variables

The SegmentStream is based on the digitalData standard, which is a multilevel object with a nested structure. All objects of the first level are defined by the standard and can not be changed:

website
page
product
user
transaction
cart
events
…

Each of these objects can have an unlimited number of nested objects or variables. Some of them are already defined by the standard, the rest can be set at your discretion.

When creating new objects and parameters in digitalData, it is important to follow the following rules.

Check if the parameter is already reserved in the standard
All parameters and objects must be named in camelCase

How to name events

In SegmentStream we use a set of clear naming rules for events, oriented to past-time actions:

Select all objects with which it is possible to perform certain actions on your site. For example,for Ecommerce, this could be:
- Profile Info
- Product
- Cart
- Transaction
- Campaign
- …

Select the actions that can be performed with each object:

Object	Action
Profile Info	Updated
Product	Viewed, Clicked, Added, Removed
Cart	Viewed
Transaction	Completed, Refunded
Campaign	Viewed, Clicked

Connect them using Title Case:
- Updated Profile Info
- Viewed Product
- Clicked Product
- Added Product
- Removed Product
- Viewed Cart
- Completed Transaction
- Refunded Transaction
- Viewed Campaign
- Clicked Campaign

Do not use unique data in the name of the event. for example:

digitalData.events.push({ name: 'Viewed Product - iPhone X' });

digitalData.events.push({ name: 'Selected Credit Term - 3 months' });

Instead, send this data as parameters:

digitalData.events.push({
    name: 'Viewed Product',
    product: {
        name: 'iPhone X'
    }
});

digitalData.events.push({
    name: 'Selected Credit Term',
    creditTerm: '3 months'
});

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This document was last updated on June 5, 2017. If you notice any gaps, outdated information or simply want to leave some feedback to help us improve our documentation, please let us know!

Event and variable naming conventions

Page contents

Introduction

How to name variables

How to name events

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