Advanced Settings for Factors

The Advanced Settings area of the Factors page allows you to specify a number of advanced features including:

• Link to Factor
• Evaluation Sequence
• Required Visit Rating
• New Visit Rating (if match occurs)
• Count User When Triggered
• Disable Campaigns and QuickChange Variations when Search Text Fails to Match
• Disable Campaigns and QuickChange Variations when Cookie Name Conflicts with Existing Site Cookie

Not all Advanced Settings are available for every Factor Type. The settings you see are determined by the type of Factor you select. The following sections describe each setting. The table that follows shows the settings available for each type of Factor.

Link to Factor

Linking allows you to create a parent-child relationship between Variations of two or more Factors so that they are always displayed at the same time when you choose to include the Parent Factor in a Campaign. Use the Link to Factor drop-down to select a Parent Factor for the current Factor. Refer to Linking Factors for more information.

Evaluation Sequence

When a user's request matches more than one Variation or Metric, the Evaluation Sequence determines when the individual Variation is applied or the Metric matches. Variations and Metric with lower sequence numbers are considered before those with higher sequence numbers. The Evaluation Sequence value must be within the range of -100 to 100.

By default, Metrics have an Evaluation Sequence of 10 and Variations have an Evaluation Sequence of 50. This means that SiteSpect counts Metrics before applying any Variations to the user's current request.

For Origin Factors, the Evaluation Sequence determines the order in which the values appear in the Affinity Cookie.

Required Visit Rating

A Visit Rating is an integer value associated with each user's visit. The Visit Rating starts at zero when the user's visit starts and changes if a Variation or Metric matches whose New Visit Rating value is not zero.

The Required Visit Rating specifies the minimum Visit Rating that a user must have in order for a Variation to be applied. Acceptable values are integers in the range -127 to 127. For example, a Required Visit Rating value of 5 means that the user's rating must be greater than or equal to 5 for the Variation to be applied. A Required Visit Rating of zero matches any existing rating value.

New Visit Rating

The New Visit Rating specifies the new value for a user's Visit Rating when a Variation matches. Acceptable values are integers in the range -127 to 127. No change is made to the Visit Rating if the New Visit Rating is set to zero.

Count User When Triggered

This setting determines whether or not a user is counted toward a Campaign's results after having any of this Factor's Variations applied. The default is Yes. By setting this parameter to No, users who see its Variations are not counted (although they may still be counted by seeing another Factor's Variations whose Count User When Triggered setting is set to Yes).

Ordinarily, a user who has been assigned to a Campaign must see at least one Variation (or Control) before being counted toward the results. SiteSpect does this to keep the Campaign's data as pure as possible; users who are assigned to a Campaign but don't ever view a Variation are not counted.

In special circumstances, you may want set this value to No to prevent a user from being counted if they have seen the Factor's Variations. For example, if a Factor's Variations exist solely to rewrite a URL link (href) to any of several alternate target pages, the act of rewriting the URL link should not cause the user to be counted. However, in this example, another Factor should be created to trigger a Variation on the target page (even if the Search Text and Replacement Text are empty), thus counting the user.

Disable Campaigns and QuickChange Variations when Search Text Fails to Match

If this is checked, any Campaign that contains this Factor is automatically disabled when the defined Search Text fails to match anything on the page. This prevents visitors from being counted in a Campaign when the Variation has not been applied. This is also useful when the underlying content has changed, which results in the Variation no longer working.

This setting also controls whether QuickChange Variations of this Factor are disabled when the Search Text fails to match.

Disable Campaigns and QuickChange Variations when Cookie Name Conflicts with Existing Site Cookie

SiteSpect recommends using new cookie names for Origin Experiments that are set only by SiteSpect. This allows SiteSpect to control the cookie and ensure that it is set properly for the user based on Campaign assignment.

If the origin web server sets a cookie for the user that has the same name as the cookie used by this Factor, then when this setting is checked, SiteSpect disables the Campaigns and QuickChanges using this Factor. This ensures that the origin's cookie is not modified by SiteSpect.

In the above scenario, when this setting is unchecked, the origin webserver's cookie is overwritten by SiteSpect with the values determined by the user's Campaign assignment.

Advanced Settings Available for Each Factor

The following table lists which Advanced Settings are available for each Factor type.