A Deeper Look at DataLayers
DataLayers store a variety of page view metrics from a website – including hits, users, sessions, products viewed, and more – and turn them into consistent and reliable data that marketers can analyse to create a better on-page customer experience.
Why is it Important Now?
Consumers are increasingly expecting content tailored specifically to them and one of the modern marketers’ most pressing challenges is to deliver this relevant and personalised content to them, but there’s a catch: the death of third-party data.
The upcoming loss of such a scaled and informative data source, along with consumers’ increasing concern about collection of their data, has made it harder to access the necessary insights to inform these personalised marketing decisions.
DataLayers offer marketers a simple solution to these problems, cutting through the data sourcing debate and myriad of options available to advertisers, and delivering access to insightful customer information. The keyword here is simple; with a noted data skills gap threatening to leave some marketers behind, DataLayers offer a solution that is accessible to all.
What are the Benefits?
First off it gives flexibility. The dataLayer sits in between the presentation layer – the web pages your visitors see – and the application layer – all the tools you connect to your website. Unlike other data collection processes like DOM scraping or CSS selectors, its separation from both these other layers means that changes can be made to the design or structure of websites without impacting the data collection.
This is especially important as consumers’ digital habits change and brands must continually understand and review their content success and focus, to deliver a stimulating and up-to-date website experience.
Also the ability to standardise and align different tools running on the application layer, such as Google Analytics or Mixpanel, is hugely powerful. A DataLayer allows marketers to set consistent naming conventions, on everything from web pages to granular details such as product colours.
Achieving this more cohesive overview of data gives companies more control over it. As we all know, information is power, and having a better handle on website data allows for more informed decision making. This is especially powerful when assessing the entire sales funnel, as the in-depth data on users’ webpage actions can help processes to be streamlined and tailored to provide a more cohesive experience across their entire journey.
Further benefits include:
- Content grouping: Allowing for a standard system to expose data trends, making it easier to detect changes.
- Ecommerce: Ecommerce metrics are the most reliable and secure way to measure conversions (transactionId and transactionTotal). When using the DataLayer, measurements are subject to fewer errors if the website is modified.
- Audiences: By collecting more valuable data through the DataLayer, better-segmented audience lists can be created. These lists can provide insights to improve the conversion rates of campaigns.
- Ease of creating activation rules in pixels: A label can also be triggered based on the information that appears in the DataLayer.
DataLayers are especially useful to any company working within ecommerce – from the travel sector to automotive sales – so understanding the tool should be prioritised.
DataLayers allow for an adaptive, flexible and personalised approach by generating and simplifying data, allowing marketers to spend more time creating truly engaging customer experiences.