Data Collection Examples

Overview

Every action that the Beacon may collect boils down to a standardized format. Based on the type of the event, the beacon will attempt to fill in the rest of the properties ans context within the data. Below is a high-level visualization of how the various fields inside of each collected event come together.

Important Fields To Know

Every beacon event contains a number of consistent fields. While the details inside of each field may vary, this structure is consistent:

Field	Description	Examples
type	The type of the event that is occuring	page, identity, session, event
event	The name of the event itself in ObjectAction format	SessionStarted, PageViewed, LinkClicked
originalTimestamp	The timestamp of the event in UTC format	2021-05-18T11:29:22.782Z
properties	Specific attributes specific to the type of event, that help provide more detail into WHAT the end user is interacting with	See examples below
context	Consistent attributes that communicate WHO and HOW an end user is interacting with the web property	See examples below

Data Examples

It can be easier to see what data collection looks like, by looking at an example users interaction with a website. For this section, imagine that a singular users goes to a website (https://example.com).

Identity: User

As soon as the visitor lands on the page, given that this example is set with userAndSession, the Beacon determines that there is no beacon-user value set in localstorage, so it will create one, which creates this event:

{
  "type": "identity",
  "event": "anonymous",
  "originalTimestamp": "2021-05-18T11:29:21.782Z",
  "properties": {
    "id":"b6d1a732-52b3-49e9-8fc4-bfac3c5c721a",
    "type":"anonymous"
  },
  "context": {
    "userId": "b6d1a732-52b3-49e9-8fc4-bfac3c5c721a",
    "channel": "web",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "language": "en-US",
    "referrer": "",
    "screen": "1920x1080",
    "url": "/",
  }
}

Identity: Session

Again given that example is set with userAndSession, the Beacon will now see that a session isn't set in localstorage either by looking for beacon-session. Since this is our first time landing on the page, it will create a new session:

{
  "type": "session",
  "event": "SessionStarted",
  "originalTimestamp": "2021-05-18T11:29:22.782Z",
  "properties": {
    "sessionId": "86beb41f-4be6-4af2-b5de-ed046a9739cf",
    "firstEvent": 1715646346,
    "lastEvent": 1715646346
  },
  "context": {
    "userId": "b6d1a732-52b3-49e9-8fc4-bfac3c5c721a",
    "sessionId": "86beb41f-4be6-4af2-b5de-ed046a9739cf",
    "channel": "web",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "language": "en-US",
    "referrer": "",
    "screen": "1920x1080",
    "url": "/",
  }
}

Tracker: Page

Because the page tracker is on, once the page resolves, this event with a type of page will be collected. Any metadata that the beacon can collect will be placed in the properties.

{
  "type": "page",
  "event": "PageViewed",
  "originalTimestamp": "2021-05-18T11:30:21.782Z",
  "properties": {
    "page": "Home Page"
  },
  "context": {
    "userId": "b6d1a732-52b3-49e9-8fc4-bfac3c5c721a",
    "sessionId": "86beb41f-4be6-4af2-b5de-ed046a9739cf",
    "channel": "web",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "language": "en-US",
    "referrer": "",
    "screen": "1920x1080",
    "url": "/",
  }
}

Tracker: Click

Because the click tracker is on, once the visitor sees the page, they will click a link and this is captured as a generic event with type of event, and an event name of LinkClicked. Any metadata that the beacon can collect will be placed in the properties.

{
  "type": "event",
  "event": "LinkClicked",
  "originalTimestamp": "2021-05-18T11:30:41.782Z",
  "properties": {
    "href":"/news",
    "inner_text":"Click this link",
    "location":{
      "x":148,
      "y":47}
    }
  },
  "context": {
    "userId": "b6d1a732-52b3-49e9-8fc4-bfac3c5c721a",
    "sessionId": "86beb41f-4be6-4af2-b5de-ed046a9739cf",
    "channel": "web",
    "hostname": "example.com",
    "language": "en-US",
    "referrer": "",
    "screen": "1920x1080",
    "url": "/",
  }
}