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Common Web SDK Plugins extension overview

Last update: Mon Jun 16 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

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  • Developer
IMPORTANT
The extension is intended to be used with the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK extension. To see information on the version intended to be used with AppMeasurement, refer to the overview on the Common Analytics Plugins extension.

This document covers how to configure the Web SDK Plugins tag extension and use it to augment the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK extension.

Configure the Common Web SDK Plugins extension

This section provides a reference for the options available when configuring the Web SDK Plugins extension…

IMPORTANT
The Common Web SDK Plugins extension is intended to augment the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK extension, however, you do not need to have it installed for the extension to work as expected.

Adding plugins to the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK extension

No configuration is necessary to initialize or add a plugin to your library outside of using the following native data elements that are provided by the Common Web SDK Plugins extension:

getAndPersistValue

IMPORTANT
This data element both sets cookies and allows for storing user-generated values in cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getAndPersistValue Analytics plug-in. The getAndPersistValue data element stores a value in a cookie that can be retrieved later during a visit.

The getAndPersistValue data element provides the following arguments:

  • vtp (required): The value to persist from page to page
  • cn (optional): The name of the cookie to store the value. If this argument is not set, The cookie is named "s_gapv"
  • ex (optional): The number of days before the cookie expires. If this argument is 0 or is not set, the cookie expires at the end of the visit (30 minutes of inactivity).

If the variable in the vtp argument is set, then the data element sets the cookie then returns the cookie value. If the variable in the vtp argument is not set, then the data element only returns the cookie value.

getGeoCoordinates

IMPORTANT
This plug-in requires location access on the client but will not throw an exception if it doesn’t get it.

Allows you to set up and configure the getGeoCoordinates Analytics plug-in. The getGeoCoordinates data element captures the latitude and longitude of visitors’ devices.

The getGeoCoordinates data element does not use any arguments. It returns one of the following values:

  • "geo coordinates not available": For devices that do not have geo-location data available at the time that the plug-in runs. This value is common on the first hit of the visit, especially when visitors first need to provide consent on tracking their location.
  • "error retrieving geo coordinates": When the plug-in encounters any errors when attempting to retrieve the device’s location
  • "latitude=[LATITUDE] | longtitude=[LONGITUDE]": Where [LATITUDE]/[LONGITUDE] are the latitude and longitude, respectively

getNewRepeat

IMPORTANT
This data element sets cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getNewRepeat Analytics plug-in. The getNewRepeat data element determines whether a visitor to the site is a new visitor or a repeat visitor within a desired number of days.

The getNewRepeat data element uses the following arguments:

  • d (integer, optional): The minimum number of days required between visits that resets visitors back to "New". If this argument is not set, it defaults to 30 days.

This data element returns the value of "New" if the cookie set by the data element doesn’t exist or has expired. It returns the value of "Repeat" if the cookie set by the data element exists and the amount of time since the current hit and the time set in the cookie is greater than 30 minutes. This method returns the same value for an entire visit.

getPageName

Allows you to set up and configure the getPageName Analytics plug-in. The getPageName data element creates an easy to read, friendly formatted version of the current URL.

The getPageName data element uses the following arguments:

  • si (optional, string): An ID inserted into the beginning of the string representing the ID of the site. This value can either be a numeric ID or a friendly name. When not set, it defaults to the current domain.
  • qv (optional, string): A comma-delimited list of query string parameters that, if found in the URL, are added to the string
  • hv (optional, string): A comma-delimited list of parameters found in the URL hash that, if found in the URL, are added to the string
  • de (optional, string): The delimiter to split up individual parts of the string. Defaults to a pipe (|).

The data element returns a string containing a friendly-formatted version of the URL. This string is typically assigned to the pageName variable, but can be used in other variables as well.

getPreviousValue

IMPORTANT
This data element both sets cookies and allows for storing user-generated values in cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getPreviousValue Analytics plug-in. The getPreviousValue data element sets a variable to a value set on a previous hit.

The getPreviousValue data element uses the following arguments:

  • v (string, required): The variable that has the value that you want to pass over to the next image request. A common variable used is s.pageName to retrieve the previous page value.
  • c (string, optional): The name of the cookie that stores the value. If this argument is not set, it defaults to "s_gpv".

When you call this data element, it returns the string value contained in the cookie. The plug-in then resets the cookie expiration, and assigns it the variable value from the v argument. The cookie expires after 30 minutes of inactivity.

getQueryParam

Allows you to set up and configure the getQueryParam Analytics plug-in. The getQueryParam data element extracts the value of any query string parameter contained in a URL. It is useful for extracting campaign codes, both internal and external, from landing page URLs. It is also valuable when extracting search terms or other query string parameters. This data element provides robust features in parsing complex URLs, including hashes and URLs containing multiple query string parameters.

The getQueryParam data element uses the following arguments:

  • qsp (required): A comma delimited list of query string parameters to look for within the URL. It is not case-sensitive.
  • de (optional): The delimiter to use if multiple query string parameters match. Defaults to an empty string.
  • url (optional): A custom URL, string, or variable to extract the query string parameter values from. Defaults to window.location.

Calling this data element returns a value depending on the above arguments and the URL:

  • If a matching query string parameter is not found, the method returns an empty string.
  • If a matching query string parameter is found, the method returns the query string parameter value.
  • If a matching query string parameter is found but the value is empty, the method returns true.
  • If multiple matching query string parameters are found, the method returns a string with each parameter value delimited by the string in the de argument.

getTimeParting

Allows you to set up and configure the getTimeParting Analytics plug-in. The getTimeParting data element captures the details of the time when any measurable activity takes place on your site. This data element is valuable when you want to breakdown metrics by any repeatable division of time over a given date range. For example, you can compare conversion rates between two different days of the week, such as all Sundays vs. all Thursdays. You can also compare periods of the day, such as all mornings vs. all evenings.

The getTimeParting data element uses the following argument:

t (Optional but recommended, string): The name of the time zone to convert the visitor’s local time to. Defaults to UTC/GMT time. Refer to the List of TZ database time zones on Wikipedia for a complete list of valid values.

Common valid values include:

  • "America/New_York" for Eastern Time
  • "America/Chicago" for Central Time
  • "America/Denver" for Mountain Time
  • "America/Los_Angeles" for Pacific Time

Calling this data element returns a string that contains the following delimited by a pipe (|):

  • The current year
  • The current month
  • The day of the month
  • The day of the week
  • The current time (AM/PM)

getTimeSinceLastVisit

IMPORTANT
This data element sets cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getTimeSinceLastVisit Analytics plug-in. The getTimeSinceLastVisit data element tracks how long a visitor has taken to return to your site after their last visit.

The getTimeSinceLastVisit data element does not use any arguments. It returns the amount of time elapsed since the visitor last came to the site, bucketed in the following format:

  • Time between 30 minutes and an hour since the last visit is set to the nearest half-minute benchmark. For example, "30.5 minutes", "53 minutes"
  • Time between an hour and a day is rounded to the nearest quarter-hour benchmark. For example, "2.25 hours", "7.5 hours"
  • Time greater than a day is rounded to the nearest day benchmark. For example, "1 day", "3 days", "9 days", "372 days"
  • If a visitor has not visited before or the time elapsed is greater than two years, the value is set to "New Visitor".

getValOnce

IMPORTANT
This data element both sets cookies and allows for storing user-generated values in cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getValOnce Analytics plug-in. The getValOnce data element prevents a variable from being set equal to the same value more than once.

The getValOnce data element uses the following arguments:

  • vtc (required, string): The variable to check and see if it was just previously set to an identical value
  • cn (optional, string): The name of the cookie that holds the value to check. Defaults to "s_gvo"
  • et (optional, integer): The expiration of the cookie in days (or minutes, depending on the ep argument). Defaults to 0, which expires at the end of the browser session
  • ep (optional, string): Only set this argument if the et argument is also set. Set this argument to "m" if you want the et argument to expire in minutes instead of days. Defaults to "d", which sets the et argument in days.

If the vtc argument and cookie value match, this method returns an empty string. If the vtc argument and cookie value do not match, the method returns the vtc argument as a string.

getVisitDuration

IMPORTANT
This data element sets cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getVisitDuration Analytics plug-in. The getVisitDuration data element tracks the amount of time in minutes that the visitor has been on the site up to that point.

The getVisitDuration data element does not use any arguments. It returns one of the following values:

  • "first hit of visit"
  • "less than a minute"
  • "1 minute"
  • "[x] minutes" (where [x] is the number of minutes passed since the visitor landed on the site)

getVisitNum

IMPORTANT
This data element sets cookies. Please refer to the plug-in specific documentation for more information.

Allows you to set up and configure the getVisitNum Analytics plug-in. The getVisitNum data element returns the visit number for all visitors that come to the site within the desired number of days.

The getVisitNum data element uses the following arguments:

  • rp (optional, integer OR string): The number of days before the visit number counter resets. Defaults to 365 when not set.

    • When this argument is "w", the counter resets at the end of the week (this Saturday at 11:59 PM)
    • When this argument is "m", the counter resets at the end of the month (the last day of this month)
    • When this argument is "y", the counter resets at the end of the year (December 31st)

  • erp (optional, boolean): When the rp argument is a number, this argument determines if the visit number expiration should be extended. If set to true, subsequent hits to your site resets the visit number counter. If set to false, subsequent hits to your site do not extend when the visit number counter resets. Defaults to true. This argument is not valid when the rp argument is a string.

The visit number increment whenever the visitor returns to your site after 30 minutes of inactivity. Calling this method returns an integer that represents the visitor’s current visit number.

p_fo (Page First Only)

Allows you to set up and configure the p_fo Analytics plug-in. The p_fo data element is a utility that checks for the existence of a specific JavaScript object. If the object doesn’t exist, then the plug-in creates the object and returns true. If the JavaScript object already exists on the page, then it returns false. This data element is useful to run code exactly once on a page.

The p_fo data element uses the following arguments:

  • on (required, string): The name of the JavaScript object that the data element creates if the object doesn’t yet exist on the page.

If the object doesn’t yet exist, this method returns true and creates the object. If the object already exists, this method returns false.

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