Events & Attributes

This guide is designed to provide a better understanding of the events, event parameters and attributes, of their usage, and insertion methods. With this guide, you can find answers to the following questions:

• What is an event? What is an event parameter?
• What is an attribute?
• What are default events and attributes?
• What are custom events and attributes?
• How can I ingest custom events and attributes?
• How can I use the default and custom events, event parameters, and attributes?

What is an event? What is an event parameter?

An event defines all the actions your users perform while interacting with your website, application, campaigns, and/or offline stores.

For example, if a user clicks on a product to view its details and lands on the product detail page, their action triggers a product detail page view event.

Some examples of event are as follows:

• Listing page view
• Mobile app open
• Lead collection form submit
• Purchase
• WhatsApp reply
• Store visit
• Store purchase

Each event has various details called the event parameters. Event parameters help you understand the context of an event. For example, the purchase event would have the product name, price, and category as event parameters.

You can use the user events to create advanced segmentation and targeting, and personalize your users’ experience with individualized content.

What is an attribute?

An attribute defines all the details about a user. It helps you understand their preferences such as personal information, last purchased and visited products, etc.

You can use the user attributes to create advanced segmentation and targeting, and personalize your users’ experience with individualized content.

For example, if a user visits product A, then product B, their last visited product name attribute would be product B.

What are default events and attributes?

Default events and attributes are the user events and attributes that Insider defines for your account in advance. These events and attributes are determined based on the requirements of Insider’s products, and the common user behavior and actions. This way, you can create only those that are not available in this list, or those that you need for your use cases.

For example, the email attribute is required for many Insider products, and is one of the identifier options. You do not need to create the email attribute as a custom attribute since Insider creates it by default. You only need to pass the email information needed for this attribute. Or you do not need to trigger an event for the product detail page view as it is triggered by the Insider integration when a product detail page is visited.

The default events and attributes are listed on the Components > Events & Attributes page. While some require an integration or data ingestion from your end, some do not as they are autopopulated by Insider. 

You can use all the events and attributes that you see on the Events & Attributes page with all UCD products. For example, you can segment your email recipients with an in-app event based on whether they have seen an in-app campaign.

See the list of Default Events and Attributes.

What are custom events and attributes?

All the events and attributes that you pass with various integrations (e.g. Event Integration, Upsert User Data API, etc.) are defined as custom events and attributes.

For example, the last visited product name of a user is a default attribute while the last wishlist item is a custom attribute. Or the cart page view is a default event while the wishlist page view is a custom event. In this case, the last wishlist item is a custom event parameter of the wishlist page view event.

How can I ingest custom events and attributes?

You can ingest custom events, event parameters, and attributes via various data ingestion methods.

The most common data ingestion methods are as follows: 

• Upsert user data API
• Insider’s Mobile SDK
• Insider Object integration
• Creating saved segments
• Uploading contact lists
• Web event integration
• External platform integrations (e.g. Segment, Salesforce, etc.)

If you send an undefined event, event parameter, or an attribute via any of the client-side, server to server, or native/third party/external integrations listed above, Insider’s unified customer database (UCD) will capture this data with the name and key you set. This means that you do not need to visit the Events & Attributes page to create your custom events, event parameters, or attributes.

How can I use the default and custom events, event parameters, and attributes?

You can utilize the default and custom events, event parameters, and attributes in various use cases. For example, you can create advanced segments, offer your users a personalized experience, and leverage your online data in your offline campaigns and strategies. Below you will find some examples of these cases:

Advanced segmentation capabilities

You can use the Events and Attributes segments in the Standard segments to build targeted user groups. For example, you can create a segment of users who are older than 24 with the Attributes segment. Or you can target the users who have made a purchase once in the last 24 hours with the Events segment. 

You can also create Saved Segments with Events or Attributes to use in your campaigns.

See below for some segment examples with default and custom events and attributes:

• A brand-specific segment with users who are interested in the Poshstreet brand and are more likely to buy discounted products, whose last purchase date is in the last 90 days, and who did not visit your website in the last 30 days
• Replenishers segment with users who performed the purchase event of a specific product, who have the one_time_shopper attribute, and who made a purchase in the last 60 days
• Credit card seekers segment with users who have the new_user attribute, who performed the credit_cart_page_visit event and the left_application_form event, and who are iOS users
• Sedan car lovers segment with users who have the new_user attribute, who performed the sedan_car_visit event and the left_test_drive_form event, and who are tablet users
• Active data consumers segment with users who performed the data_package_excessed event, who have the value_added_service_user and in_renewal_term attributes, and who are iOS users

Individualized experience with dynamic content

You can individualize the user experience with events, event parameters, and attributes for better targeting. You can offer highly personalized content with the Dynamic Content feature.

With Dynamic Content, you can use the default and custom attributes, and (constant) event parameters in your campaign content. 

See below for some examples:

• You can add dynamic content to your web push message that you send through an Architect journey. 
• You can send an email to your users with their names in the email subject, and their custom wishlist items in the email content.
• You can send a web push notification with the last visited product’s information. This way, each user will receive the notification with different content.
• You can send an app push notification to your users with their names in the message.
• You can send a replenishment message to remind your users of a product they bought before so they can repurchase it.
• You can send a WhatsApp message in your Architect journey to remind your users of an item they left in their cart.

Feeding data to your other platforms

Just as you can feed your online data with your offline data for unification purposes, you can also pass this data to your other online and offline platforms. This means that you can use the data Insider collects outside your Insider campaigns.

You can export your raw user data, set up a data stream, or connect the events and attributes of your users to your services like CRM, call center, etc. for online and offline targeting.

To do this, you can utilize the following resources:

• Export raw user data API
• Get user profiles API
• Data stream

See the complete list of Default Events and Attributes.