Developer terminology

A data center is the entity, for which you report data in Sitefinity Insight. You can have multiple data centers. For example, the www.progress.com website has a dedicated data center, which hold all data collected from the site. In addition, there are dedicated data centers for each Progress product site, for example, for www.sitefinity.com. Thus, data is reported, processed, and viewed separately.

Each data center has a unique associated API key (a GUID) that you use to relate the reported data to this specific data center. For more information, see Data centers and data sources.

The data source is a string that identifies from the data center collects and stores data, such as sentences or metadata). A single data center can have more than one data sources, designating where data comes from, for example, CRM system, HR system, Corporate website.

For more information, see Data sources.

A Subject is a unique identifier that specifies the person who performed an action reported to Sitefinity Insight as string, usually a GUID or an email. The data source, from which the action is reported is key, as well. A subject Steven from data source Website is regarded by Sitefinity Insight as a different person than a subject Steven from data source Mobile App. Note that one and the same physical person can have actions reported in the system via different subjects from one or more data sources.

A predicate is the reported action that the subject has performed, for example, Visit, Submit form, Download file, Played video, and so on.

An object is the entity, on which the subject performs the reported action. For example, www.progress.com is an object if the action (predicate) is Visit webpage, or, www.progress.com/getting-started-video is the object if the action is Played video, and so on. The same object can be combined with different predicates.

Subject metadata provides additional information to a subject, for example, a first and last name, country, phone number, and so on.

A sentence is the basic data entity used in Sitefinity Insight. Simply put, the sentence contains information about Who Did What When. The main components of a sentence are the  Subject (the Who, including information about the data source), the Predicate (the Did - the action performed by the subject), the Object (the What), and the Timestamp (the When).

The sentence can also carry additional information, such as IP (the IP address, from which the subject performed the action) and metadata about the subject and object.

Via mapping Sitefinity Insight treats two subjects as one and the same person (contact). Mapping of subjects also depends on the data sources they are reported from. Two subjects can be mapped to one another when they are reported from the same data source, for example, when an anonymous visitor logs on your website. In addition, Subjects from different data sources can be mapped to one another when you recognize that one and the same person browsed your website and your mobile app.

An interaction is a combination of a sentence, object, subject metadata, and mapping. Working with interactions is the recommended way to report data to Sitefinity Insight, as it allows reporting all information, listed above, at once.

In marketing terms, a persona is a fictional character type that represents real customer needs, feelings, and common behavioral patterns. Using personas, you group visitors by common characteristics - demographic or behavioral. For example, you can group visitors by role - Gamer, IT professional, Sales Person , and so on. You can also group by interactions or personal information, such as  gender, age, interests, and so on.

For more information, see Personas.

In marketing terms, a lead is a person who has a potential to buy the product or service you are offering. Lead scoring is a methodology to rank your visitors into stages (or groups), based on their interest in your product and their readiness to buy.

For more information, see Lead scoring.

A conversion in marketing means when a visitor on your site completes an action you intended them to complete, for example, request a demo, buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, and so on.
Usually, when you want to track a conversion, you define a segment of  visitors to track. For example, if you are a salesperson responsible for the city of Boston and you want to gauge the success of your marketing efforts to sell a product, you define a segment of visitors that live in Boston.

For more information, see Conversions and touchpoints.

With touchpoints you track who and when completes a specific action. A touchpoint is any interaction in the customer journey, for example, Visit (predicate) google.com (object), Download (predicate) document.pdf (object), Search for (predicate) cats (object), and so on.

When a visitor completes the action, defined by a touchpoint, they hit the touchpoint.

For more information, see Track touchpoints and measure conversion rate uplift.

A/B testing is a widely-used web analytics technique of optimizing the content of your website and increasing conversions. The technique randomly serves two or more versions of the same page and tracks how each of the them affects a predefined conversion.

For more information, see A/B testing.