Analytics integration with third-party providers such as IBM Analytics will help you measure customer interaction with Bazaarvoice-hosted, user-generated content (UGC).

IBM Analytics integration involves the collection, analysis, and reporting of data that helps you:

  • Identify the types of users who visit your site.
  • Determine the value of the actions performed during those visits, such as an “add to cart” event and other sucesss metrics.

Analytics KPIs

Analytics will help you answer important questions about your Bazaarvoice solution, such as:

  • How many visitors to my site are viewing and sharing UGC with others?
  • Which types of visitor interactions with UGC are most valuable to my business?
  • Does interaction with UGC differ across my product categories or marketing channels?
  • Are my marketing efforts helping to increase the usage of UGC on my site?

Since business performance metrics differ greatly by industry, consider the following metrics when determining the impact of UGC on your site:

eCommerce clients

  • Add-to-cart conversion rate
  • Average order value
  • Revenue per session
  • Cart abandonment rate
  • New and repeat buyer percentages

Non-eCommerce clients

  • Percent of visits that locate a store or are referred to an online retailer
  • Percent of visits that sign up for email
  • Percent of visits that submit a lead form
  • Percent of visits that request a quote

How does it work?

Each time a visitor interacts with Bazaarvoice-hosted UGC, Bazaarvoice sends information to your IBM Analytics account using JavaScript. This JavaScript tag identifies the type of interaction that occurred.

Once you’ve set up segmentation and reporting in IBM Analytics, you can view and analyze the performance of visitors who interacted with UGC versus visitors who did not.

Note: IBM Analytics cannot track visitors who read UGC if they do not explicitly interact with content by clicking it. Consequently, the reported analytics underestimates the percentage of visitors who use UGC, as well as the overall impact of UGC on your site.

In summary, this is what happens with IBM Analytics integration:

  • Custom page view tags capture the visitor interaction with Bazaarvoice.
  • The Category Definition File (CDF) rolls up the Bazaarvoice tags.
  • Persistent segments filter Bazaarvoice activity.

IBM Analytics uses the following tagging, segmentation, and categorization methods to collect and report on user interactions:

Method Type Description
Tagging method Custom page-view tags Tags are used to track user actions.
Segmentation method Report Segments Used to report on a subset of visitors whose behavior you want to view and analyze.
Categorization method Category Definition File (CDF) Used to make user interactions more human-readable by classifying them into predefined buckets for reporting.
Note: The strategy of using custom page-view tags inflates the total number of page views. However, accurate page-view counts can be calculated by subtracting Bazaarvoice page views from your reporting data.

Tagging method

Bazaarvoice uses the cmCreateManualPageviewTag function to pass analytics-related information to IBM Analytics. When this function executes, Bazaarvoice populates the following parameters with information about a visitor’s interaction with UGC.

  • categoryID – Bazaarvoice uses the following five-dimension structure to populate the categoryID parameter: 
      [Group]^[Product]^[Event Source]^[Event Type]^[Event Target]^[Event Name]

    Depending on how a visitor interacts with UGC, Bazaarvoice populates each dimension with a value. For example, if a visitor clicks to sort reviews, Bazaarvoice populates the categoryID parameter with the following values for each dimension:

      Bazaarvoice^RatingsAndReviews^Action^Read^Review^Sort
  • pageID – Bazaarvoice uses the following structure to populate the pageID parameter: 
      BV^[Product ID]^P^[Product URL]

    For example, the following pageID is passed to IBM Analytics for a product with an ID or stock keeping unit (SKU) of 12345678 and a URL of http://client.com/clientProductPage.html:

      BV^P^12345678^clientProudctPage.html

    The passing of product-specific information into the pageID parameter allows you to drill into any type of visitor interaction with Bazaarvoice and identify the products with which the interaction occurred.

Segmentation method

A segment is a subset of visitors whose behavior you want to view and analyze. The goal of IBM Analytics is to compare the behavior of visitors who interacted with Bazaarvoice UGC with those that did not.

The following report segments are used to isolate visitors who interacted with Bazaarvoice UGC from visitors who viewed a product page but did not interact with any of its UGC.

  • Visitors who interacted with Bazaarvoice hosted content: Visitors who viewed a page where all KPIs being tracked are available (a product page, for instance) and used UGC hosted by Bazaarvoice. For example, visitors who clicked “Read all Reviews”, or clicked a tab over Bazaarvoice content, or visitors who were referred from a Bazaarvoice link.

  • Visitors who didn’t interact with Bazaarvoice content: Visitors who viewed a page where all KPIs being tracked are available but did not interact with UGC hosted by Bazaarvoice. For example, visitors who viewed a page where Bazaarvoice UGC is deployed (a product page, for instance) but did not interact with Bazaarvoice UGC.

    Note: This only excludes visitors who didn’t actively interact with Bazaarvoice UGC. Users who view UGC but do not click it are not excluded, making this segment conservative.
Caution:
  • All product pages must be tagged with the Product View tag.
  • Ensure that there are at least two persistent report segments available to be used for the new segments.
Note: Both the Top Line Metric and the Page Categories reports within IBM Analytics show the performance differences of visitors who are interacting with Bazaarvoice UGC versus those who are not.

Categorization method

IBM Analytics uses an uploaded Category Definition File (CDF) to categorize visitor interactions with Bazaarvoice UGC by Category ID.

The Category Definition File (CDF) classifies the Category ID into meaningful buckets, such as the product with which a visitor interacted.

Note: The process of uploading this file does not overwrite or interfere with your existing CDF file.

Import Category Definition File (CDF)

  1. Go to your IBM Analytics menu and select Import.
  2. Select Category Definition File (CFD) from the left-hand navigation. Download the CDF file.
  3. Open the CDF file.
  4. Now open the IBM Classifications excel workbook. Refer to instructions from your IBM provider.
  5. Copy the IBM client ID from the CDF file and paste it into column A of the IBM Classifications excel workbook on the CM CDF 4.9 tab. Replace all instances of <INSERT CLIENT ID HERE> with the IBM Analytics client ID.
  6. Save this file as: CDF_<INSERT_CLIENT_ID_HERE>_<BV-DATE>.csv. Replace <INSERT_CLIENT_ID_HERE> with the IBM Analytics client ID.
  7. Upload the CDF file into IBM Analytics and submit the updated file for processing.

Volume of server calls

Server call volume represents the number of server requests that you send to your web analytics provider. Specifically, analytics integration generates additional server call volume because Bazaarvoice sends interaction-related information to your web analytics provider each time a visitor interacts with Bazaarvoice-hosted UGC.

Most web analytics vendors typically charge their customers according to a system that is based on the number of server calls that they generate every month. If their customers exceed the contracted amount, then they pay significantly more for additional server calls.

Caution: When you track visitor engagement with Bazaarvoice, you can expect an increase in server calls of around two percent. Unless you are at high-contract utilization, these additional server calls are not likely to raise your existing fees. Consult your IBM Analytics representative if you have billing concerns.

Create and view report

Bazaarvoice interaction activity can be found in the following IBM Analytics reports:

  • Page Categories report: Provides metrics about visitor interaction and page ID.
  • Top Line Metrics report: Highlights changes in the measurements that drive your site’s business results.
Note: Use the Top Line Metrics report to compare the high-level differences between visitors who used UGC and visitors who did not. The Top Line Metrics report is one of the most valuable reports because it displays KPI impact. Bazaarvoice recommends that you use it on an ongoing basis to analyze your data.

To verify that the reports are set up correctly, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Content » Page Categories » By Category report.
  2. Verify that a Bazaarvoice content category exists and that it is populated with data.
    Note: If you do not see the Bazaarvoice category, either Bazaarvoice is failing to send data to IBM Analytics or the CDF was uploaded improperly.
  3. Navigate to the Site Metrics » Top Line Metrics report.
  4. Select the Period B check box. Change the date to yesterday.
  5. Change the segment drop-down for Period A to Used Bazaarvoice and the drop-down for Period B to Did Not Use Bazaarvoice.
  6. Ensure that data is being populated in both segments for metrics in this report.