The motivation for this post is to help digital marketers quickly and easily understand how to setup Sitecore analytics to record customer behaviour. I found in a recent client engagement, people struggling to comprehend the process of setting up profiles in Sitecore. For the most part, the constraint was not the skillsets but the new language used and how to piece it all together. There is are enormous incentives for marketers to introduce behaviour tracking in Sitecore. It is fundamentally, the stepping stone to behavioural personalisation and customer experience optimisation.
Start by Planning - Sitecore Analytics
A simple way to begin planning the configuration for customer analytics is by Customer Segment and Content Type. Here is an example based on a Sporting Association’s website.
Customer Segment
- Coach/ Official
Content Types
- Volunteer
- Paid
- Junior
- On boarding
Easy so far right? Where it starts to get tricky is translating this into Sitecore terminology. So here’s my translation of Sitecore terminology.
| Sitecore Term | Term |
|---|---|
| Profile | Categorisation |
| Profile Cards | Customer Segment |
| Profile Keys | Content Types |
| Pattern Cards | Match a Customer Segment to a Browsing Pattern |
10-step Guide for Sitecore Analytics
Step 1 - Open the Sitecore Marketing Centre and create a new Profile.
Step 2 - Create a Profile Key which represents the Content Type.
Step 3 - Create 2-4 Profile Keys which are associated with that Customer Segment. Save.
Important: Add Max Value (10) and Min Value (0) for each Profile Key.
Step 4 - Create a Profile Card.
Step 5 - In the newly created Profile Card, go to Profile Value and move the scale for all profile keys to max (10).
Important: Profile Card Values can be customised for different content when added to a Content item.
Step 6 - Create A Pattern Card.
Step 7 - Scale the values in Pattern of the profile keys which will determine a match
Step 8 - Navigate to Content/page item and add a Profile Card by selecting the 
icon on the top right corner
Step 9 - Select your Coach Official Profile Card and select the customise icon 
on the top right of the screen.
Step 10 - Scale the value of the Profile Keys based on the type of content.
Important: If this is generic content for Profile Card/Customer Segment (Coaches) there is no need to customise the Profile Key Values.
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