One of the things that stopped many companies from upgrading to SiteCatalyst v15 was the use of video.  Well that’s no longer the case, as v15 Video Measurement has now been fully released and is ready to go.

Video tagging changed from v14 to v15 and an updated way of measuring video was introduced, which required a few more things to be configured before it would actually work.  In my previous post Lights, Camera, Action…Video Measurement, I focused on how easy it was integrating the Brightcove platform for SiteCatalyst v14.

So, this is a functional post on how to integrate video measurement into SiteCatalyst 15, if you’re using the Brightcove platform.

Integrate and measure

There are still only really 10 steps involved:

1. From your Omniture Reporting Suite admin, download the AppMeasurementExtension.swf file.
2. Edit your report suite settings to enable video measurement (see below).
3. Create a config file.
4. Host the AppMeasurementExtension.swf file and the config file on your server.
5. Update your crossdomain.xml file to allow brightcove.com.
6. Upload your video to Brightcove.
7. Add a setting for your AppMeasurementExtension to be called.
8. Attach the video to a player and generate the website code.
9. Add the code to your website.
10. Play the video through your site and you’re done.

How easy could that be.  No flash programming.  No fuss.

New reports

The new set of video reports are fairly comprehensive.  You can also sub-relate by other eVars, and add in different success events so you can gauge how well they help in converting visitors.  Pathing on the video name also shows which videos they go through.

eVars, events and s.props

Video in v15 requires that you use a minimum of 4 events, 3 eVars, 1 optional s.prop (and a partridge in a pear tree).  While that sounds like a lot, they actually make much more sense than the old way of doing things.

So, your 3 eVars will be used for:

• Video Name
• Segment
• Content Type

Your 4 events will be used for:

• Video Time (in seconds) spent watching
• Video Views
• Video Completes (100% view)
• Video Segment Views

It’s also a good idea to use an 3 additional events as well, to track percentage viewed:

• 25% viewed
• 50% viewed
• 75% viewed

(Ok, so that’s actually 7 success events you need).

And your optional s.prop will be used for pathing between the different Videos.

Note: the Video Name eVar requires Full Sub Relations.  Now, on the face of it, that seems a bit weird given that all eVars are now fully-subrelatable. The reason for this is that if you’re running on v14 you can upgrade your video measurement now, while you’re waiting to upgrade to v15. Just note that with full-subs on the eVar, it won’t show up in the list.

Note: the Video Name sProp requires Pathing enabled before it becomes available in the dropdown too.

SiteCatalyst Video Management

In your report suite admin, after you’ve configured all of your eVars, events and s.props, select Edit to go to the new Video Management > Video Reporting section.

You’ll be presented with a list of requirements for Video.

When you select the checkbox, the dropdown next to it will appear listing all available eVars, events etc.  The first one, Video Name, will only appear if Full Subs are enabled on the eVar.  You can actually select new eVars and events from the list and it will create them and rename them in your admin console…but, it won’t do the optional events at the bottom.

Once you’ve populated the list of required variables, you can add in the optional variables (s.prop and your 3 percentage viewed events).  The optional events get added at the bottom where it says “Include additional Event”.

Hit save and you’re ready to create your config file.

It’s also a good idea to write them down on a bit of paper, so when you create you’re config file, you’ve got a handy reference.

Ours are as follows:

Standard eVars:

• Video Name = eVar50
• Segment = eVar36
• Content Type = eVar37

Standard events:

• Video Time Played (in seconds) spent watching = event31
• Video Views = event32
• Video Completes (100% view) = event33
• Video Segment Views = event34

Optional s.prop

• Video Name = prop23

Percentage viewed events:

• 25% viewed = event35
• 50% viewed = event36
• 75% viewed = event37

The main config file

If you’ve used Brightcove and SiteCatalyst before you’ll know that you create a config file with all of your SiteCatalyst variables declared in it, which is loaded into the AppMeasurementExtension file through the video player.  Easy enough to do.

Simply create a new XML file called config.xml and put it somewhere on your servers.

The file should contain the following:

<config>
<account>your-rsid</account>
<debugTracking>true</debugTracking>
<visitorNamespace>your-namespace</visitorNamespace>
<trackingServer>your-tracking-server</trackingServer>
<media>
<autoTrack>true</autoTrack>
<trackMilestones>25,50,75,100</trackMilestones>
<trackVars>events,eVar50,eVar36,eVar37</trackVars>
<trackEvents>
event31,event32,event33,event34,event35,event36,event37
</trackEvents>
<segmentByMilestones>true</segmentByMilestones>
<trackUsingContextData>true</trackUsingContextData>
<contextDataMapping>
<a.media.name>eVar50,prop23</a.media.name>
<a.media.segment>eVar36</a.media.segment>
<a.contentType>eVar37</a.contentType>
<a.media.timePlayed>event31</a.media.timePlayed>
<a.media.view>event32</a.media.view>
<a.media.segmentView>event34</a.media.segmentView>
<a.media.milestones>
<item name="25">event35</item>
<item name="50">event36</item>
<item name="75">event37</item>
<item name="100">event33</item>
</a.media.milestones>
</contextDataMapping>
</media>
</config>

As you’ll immediately notice, the config.xml file got a whole lot longer than the original.

The context data mapping section describes each variable and the name.  I found it easier to make a list of the names and values, write them down, then check them against my config when I’d finished, just to make sure everything was in the right spot.

Notice that event33 (our Video Complete event) is matched against the item.name=”100”.

AppMeasurementExtension

The next part is downloading the latest AppMeasurementExtension.swf file from your code repository inside  SiteCatalyst.  Once you’ve downloaded it, you need to upload it onto your server somewhere.

Brightcove

When you’ve uploaded your video to Brightcove, you edit/create a new player to include a custom plugin.

The plugin needs to know where the App Extension and Config file is.  This demo is located at:

http://www.elephantsandanalytics.com.au/omniture/
AppMeasurementExtension.swf
?s.configURL=www.elephantsandanalytics.com.au/config.xml

Note that this is all on one line.

And that’s pretty much it.  Again, how easy was that.

Now when you browse the video, and use something like Fiddler or WASP, you’ll see a number of new calls being made to the Adobe Omniture servers, at the beginning of the video play, during the plays and at the end.

Happy video’ing.

Related Posts

• Time spent by Traffic Source
• Flowplayer and SiteCatalyst v15
• Success Event Pathing
• What are our members doing?
• Hello 15!
• Elusive engagement – Part II – Visitor scoring
• Deeper internal search insights that’ll help with content needs
• Moving beyond business-based segmentation
• Migration frustration – SiteCatalyst 15
• New products announced at Adobe Omniture Summit 2011