Adding simon.js to your site

Adding the following code (known as the "JavaScript tracking snippet") to your site's templates is the easiest way to get started using Simon.js.

<script>
    var _sd = _sd || {};
    _sd.partnerId = 'YOUR_PARTNER_ID_HERE';
    _sd.domain = 'YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE';
    _sd.environment = 'YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_HERE';
    _sd.debug = true;
    _sd.behaviors = {};
    (function(s,i,m){
        w=window;d=document;n='script';l=Array.prototype.slice;
        w._sd.lib=i;w.SimonData=s;
        w[s]||(w[s]={
        send:function(){(w[s].q=w[s].q||[]).push(arguments)},
        identify:function(){a=l.call(arguments);a.unshift('identify');w[s].send.apply(null,a)},
        track:function(){a=l.call(arguments);a.unshift('track');w[s].send.apply(null,a)}
        });
        t=d.createElement(n);t.src=i;
        o=d.getElementsByTagName(m)[0];o.parentNode.insertBefore(t,o)
    })('sd','LOCATION_OF_SIMON_JS','script');
</script>

The code should be added before the closing tag, and the strings YOUR_PARTNER_ID_HERE, YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE, YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_HERE and LOCATION_OF_SIMON_JS should be replaced with their corresponding settings for your organization. To see these values, from Simon expand Admin Center then click Signal Installation:

The options available to configure simon.js with are the following:

If you do not know your partner ID, please contact us.

Sending clickstream data to Simon Data

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Exceptions and debug mode

If you're unsure about whether your event is correctly formatted, you can use the debug mode. Exceptions will be silent unless the debug mode is active. Check out the details below.

The identify command

  sd.identify(userId, [traitsObject])

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A note on userId

The userId is intended to be your custom user identifier, e.g. a primary key on your production users table. However, despite being a positional parameter in the identify call, it is not required. If you don't have a userId or don't want to pass one, set the first positional parameter to an empty string.

Do not replace userId with e.g. an email address as this can cause undesirable consequences in identity management downstream.

This is an example of an identify call:

sd.identify('97980cfea0067', {
    email: '[email protected]',
    name: 'Joe Smith',
    firstName: 'Joe',
    lastName: 'Smith',
    userId: '97980cfea0067',
    username: 'joesmith',
    properties: {
      campaignId: '12345'
    }
});

A call to identify establishes the identity associated with a userId. The variable userId is a user identifier that you specify. identify can be called to pass information when a source of identity is recognized, such as an authenticated login, a click from an email with an identity URL parameter, and signup for newsletter subscription. Different types of identifiers can be passed on.

When a user registers with you for the first time, you should call identify and also make a separate call to registration.

Once identify has been called during a session, the payload for subsequent calls to track (see below) will include the supplied traits for the duration of that one browser session.

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Next-Gen Identity Identifier Requirements

If your organization is on Next-Gen Identity, email address is no longer required. However, you must ensure that the identifier values present on your Simon Signal events match the identifiers present in your organization's Simon account.

For example: if your account utilizes the User ID identifier and you want to include userId on your Simon Signal events, you must pass us the actual User ID values in the userId field in Signal events and not the values of another identifier.

If there is a non-user Id field you want to include in your Signal events, we recommend putting that value in the 'properties' object.

Adding channel identifiers to identify

You can use the properties object to specify specific channel identifiers to be used by Simon. These follow the following syntax: properties.<channel key>.<identifier key>, as highlighted in the example below.

sd.identify('97980cfea0067', {
  email: '[email protected]',
  userId: '97980cfea0067',
  properties: {
    sfmc: {
      primarySubscriberKey: '[email protected]'
    }
  }
});

The track command

  sd.track(eventType, [eventObject]);

This is an example of a Product View event:

sd.track('product_view', {
  productId: '632910392',
  brand: 'Acme',
  category: 'Apparel/Men/T-Shirts',
  productName: 'Nyan Cat T-Shirt',
  price: 24.95
});

A track command may be invoked to pass user-interaction data to Simon Data. These user-interactions are captured by specific events that are documented in this API and are explained in more detail below. Each event has an Event Type specifying the name of the event and an associated Event Object which contains additional metadata about the event. If identify (see above) has been called earlier during a session, track will include the traits supplied to identify. In all cases track will include the clientId, i.e. the cookie for that browser.

Parameters

The properties that can be specified within the eventObject object literal vary depending on the event type.

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Using custom properties

The event schema is enforced and events that are missing required properties or include unrecognized properties will be rejected during processing. Using the debug mode during your integration set-up will let you know that this is happening. However, all event types support custom properties within the properties part of the payload (see an example for product view events). The API also supports custom events if there is not a pre-existing matching event type, but make sure to adhere to the schema for those events, too.

Debugging

Enabling debug mode

Debug mode can be enabled by setting the debug parameter to true when adding the tag.

Add the setting to the tag to enable debug mode:
_sd.debug = true;

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Exceptions are silent by default

By default, exceptions are caught silently and send to our servers for further analysis. Enabling debug mode will allow exceptions to print to the console without being sent to our servers.

Understanding server responses

Add to cart event missing productId:

sd.track('add_to_cart', {
  variant: '808950810',
  quantity: 1,
  brand: 'Acme',
  category: 'Apparel/Men/T-Shirts',
  color: 'Black',
  productName: 'Nyan Cat T-Shirt',
  price: 24.95,
  properties: {
    desc: 'Slim cut t-shirt with a cat on it'
  }
});

If the implementation of simon.js is healthy, all XHR requests should complete with a 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) response code. Our servers will respond with a 412 (Precondition Failed) response code in the case that a given request does not meet our criteria and debug mode is on.