Event (jExperience)
A jExperience event is an interaction between a visitor and the website, tracked and stored by jExperience, Jahia’s personalization solution. It is always associated with a visitor profile (jExperience). A page view, a login or a form submission thus becomes material the marketing team uses to build segments (groups of visitors), measure goals and decide what to personalize.
Definition and how it works
Without event data, a profile is little more than a few attributes. With it, the profile shows what the person actually did, such as which pages they viewed, which form they submitted or which link they clicked. That is what turns a hunch ("this audience cares about our offer") into an observable fact.
Some interactions are collected by default, such as page views or logins. Others require configuration, for forms or clicks for example, or custom code. Each record carries a type and properties, in the sense of a property (jExperience), that describe what happened, while the profile and the session provide its context. A goal relies on these facts to calculate a conversion rate.
Academy documentation: about events in jCustomer
Related terms: Visitor Profile (jExperience) · Goal · Property (jExperience) · Conversion Rate · Conversion · Visitor
Resources that cover this term
jExperience event vs goal: the differences
An event is an observed fact. On its own it does not say whether that fact matters to the business. That is the goal’s job. The profile, in turn, brings together the history of one person.
| Concept | What distinguishes it |
|---|---|
| Goal | A goal names the action the team wants visitors to complete. It relies on events to calculate a conversion rate. |
| Visitor Profile (jExperience) | The profile holds a visitor’s properties and, depending on context, their sessions and events. An event is one line of that history. |
| Property (jExperience) | A property is an attribute. It can describe a profile, a session or an event, such as which form was submitted. |
jExperience event in practice
A visitor downloads a white paper. jExperience records the form submission as an event attached to their profile, with its properties (which form, on which page). The team can then use it to measure a download goal, or to show visitors in an "interested in the topic" segment a tailored piece of content on a later visit, provided the visitor returns with the same browser without having cleared their cookies, or logs in.
Before any campaign, check whether the interaction that matters to you is collected by default or needs configuring.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a developer to track a click or a form submission in jExperience?
Not always. Page views and logins are collected by default. Forms and clicks are handled through configuration, provided the page allows it. A click is only tracked on a link that has an HTML id or name. A form submission must not be blocked by JavaScript code. More specific interactions, tied to an application or a custom component, require code.
Is an event enough to measure a conversion?
No. The record only shows that an interaction took place. To turn it into a conversion, you declare a goal that states which action counts for the business. jExperience then calculates a rate from the relevant visits, except for a download goal, which only gives a number of visits. A recorded page view is not a business success until someone has decided that it is one.
Are events only for analytics, or also for personalization?
jExperience events serve both purposes. They feed visitor profiles. jExperience segments can group visitors by their properties or their behavior. A segment built on behavior, such as repeated visits to an offer page, can then receive personalized content. The quality of personalization therefore depends directly on the quality of the data collection behind it.