1.1 Tracking Technology

IBM Digital Analytics collects data at the client browser level. Data is captured when a 'tagged' site page is rendered by the visitor's browser. JavaScript function calls, or 'tags', are executed as the requested page renders in the visitor browser, creating standard http GET image requests appended with query string parameter 'name=value' pairs obtained from the 'tag' parameter data strings. The requests are sent to IBM Digital Analytics data collection servers where the appended name=value pairs are extracted and loaded into your analytics data warehouse for subsequent reporting as actionable metrics.

The data parameters in the 'tag' function calls communicate information about pages, products and visitor activities, such as carting or selecting specific products, completing purchases, registering or logging on, interacting with specific page elements, etc.

<script type="text/JavaScript"> cmTagName(<parameter_1>,<parameter 2>, 
<parameter 3>, etc); </script>

The image request received by IBM Digital Analytics data acquisition servers is parsed to extract the visitor data from the name=value query string parameter pairs, loaded into the analytics data warehouse, and a 1 x 1 pixel GIF file is returned to the requesting browser. The data collection image request are made in memory, rather than written directly onto the page, preventing response 'images' from visibly rendering on the page. The image request is asynchronous with the page load and cannot interrupt page load or visitor experience. In the unlikely event that the request cannot reach the IBM Digital Analytics data collection servers or the request response pixel is not received by the requesting browser, the page continues to render: site functionality and visitor experience are unaffected.