Understanding the basics

Read me! This page is crucial to follow and understand if you're planning on sending data to AB Tasty using our REST API. If your goal is to implement custom trackings using our JavaScript tag, you can directly jump to the Hits list documentation. But you can also keep on reading for your curiosity and to understand how we are collecting the data :)

Universal Datacollect aims at providing a unified hit format which can be used to send data to AB Tasty using any programming languages, client-side and server-side.

Identifying yourself

Each time you will send data to AB Tasty, you will need to identify yourself with your unique identifer. For client-side users, you can find your unique identifer in your AB Tasty settings, in the tag snippet.

Example of AB Tasty identifier: 3d09baddc21a365b7da5ae4d0aa5cb95

Identifying your visitors

Visitor ID

Each visitor needs a unique ID we can refer to. The visitorId is a hash composed of 16 alphanumeric characters.

xst8a1w2a2630rtc

We used to generate a 17 digits ID in the past, you might still encounter one!

Sessions

At AB Tasty, we consider a 'session' to be a navigation that doesn't go over 30 minutes of inactivity. We control the Time To Live of this session in a cookie ABTastySession.

All sessions reset at midnight depending on the timezone set on your account.

Identifying the campaigns

IDs terminology

Every AB Tasty campaign is identified by a 6 digits ID. The same goes for every AB Tasty variations that are part of a campaign. Personnalisations, Multipages and MVTs are composed of a master campaign (and master ID) with sub-campaigns (referred as sub-segments) and sub-campaigns ID.

To clarify the ID system used, here's a tab with examples:

Type	CampaignId	SubcampaignId	VariationId	Subcampaign variationId
A/B	435523	none	645234, 645235	none

An A/B only has one campaignId and as many variationId as created.

Type	CampaignId	SubcampaignId	VariationId	Subcampaign variationId
MP	352643	546738, 645324	none	756523, 756524, 756525, 756526

A Multipage has no variationId on its own, however its subcampaigns has as many variationId as created (in this example: two each). A visitor exposed to variation A of subcampaign 1 will see variation A of subcampaign 2.

Type	CampaignId	SubcampaignId	VariationId	Subcampaign variationId
Perso	358574	544635, 646352	none	647843, 647844

A Personnalization has no variationId on its own, but each subcampaign (referred as scenarios for persos) has one.

Type	CampaignId	SubcampaignId	VariationId	Subcampaign variationId
MVT	352643	546738, 645324, 645328	none	756523, 756524

A MVT works exactly as a MP, but a visitor is randomly exposed to any variationID accross the subcampaigns.

Campaign and variation IDs often follow each other since they are most of time created at the same moment. However, that's not a general rule.

Campaign history

Each time a visitor is exposed to a campaign we add it to his campaign history. A campaign stays in the visitor campaign history for 30 days after the last exposure for attribution purpose. A missing campaign history is reconstructed based on the info we already have on the visitor during the data ingestion.

When an event is fired (click, transaction, pageview), it is linked to every campaign that composes its campaign history.

The campaign history is composed of a list of campaignId / variationId pairs.

Example of campaign history

{
    "123456":"654321",
    "789123":"123789",
    "567123":"123567"
}

Arguments

Common arguments

For each type of hit you want to send to our collect API, you will have to fill arguments. Most hits share the same list of mandatory common arguments. Our JavaScript tags take care of the common arguments for you, you only have to implement the specific arguments for each hit type.

You will find the full list of arguments in the Common arguments.

Specific arguments

Each type of hits as its own set of specific arguments that will provide information about specific user action.

See the Hits list for more information.

Type of hits

The data you send to AB Tasty is grouped by type of hits. A hit isn't processed the same way depending on its nature and will serve several tools, services and purposes in the AB Tasty platform. Our JS tag covered most common hits while you will have to implement any others custom hits: clicks, transactions, form filling, etc.

List of hits type

You can find the documentation for all hits types Hits list.

name	purpose	handled by the tag
CAMPAIGN	Sent each time a visitor is exposed to a campaign	yes
PAGEVIEW	Sent each time a visitor sees a page (web only)	yes
SCREENVIEW	Sent each time a visitor sees a page (app only)	yes
VISITOREVENT	Sent each time a listed type of user interaction is registered: click, scroll, hover, ...	yes
PERFORMANCE	Occasionally sent to remotely monitor the performance of our tag (sampled)	yes
DATALAYER	Sent when the feature that collects the datalayer infos is enabled	yes
BATCH	Rootbase hit for the batching system. Tag Implementation	yes
EVENT	Send an event following category / action / label / value pattern	yes*
TRANSACTION	Send a transaction (also refers to the Transaction tag implementation)	no
ITEM	Send an item attached to a transaction (also refers to the Transaction tag implementation)	no
SEGMENT	Collect data about a specific visitor for further targeting purpose of data filtering	no
NPS	Used by the NPS widget. However, you can build your own NPS and fill our NPS report using this hit	no

* only events created in the editor

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the maximum events per session?

It is currently set to 2000 events.

When does the session get closed?

After 30 minutes of inactivity (no new hits) or at midnight depending on your account's timezone.

What is the maximum size of a hit?

The size limit of a hit is set to 5 MB, indepently from the limit of each parameter itself.

About timezones

Through our APIs, you could find three format when it comes to dates:

• timestamp (integer), necessarly UTC. eg 1676989445

• String with specified timezone. eg 2023-01-17 14:01:39 UTC+1

• raw integer. eg Hour=17 in Data Explorer. This follow your account's timezone set in your account settings and is on the 24hr format.