The Kissmetrics data model is comprised of three components: people, events, and properties. Understanding these concepts is vital to being able to analyze the data you are collecting. A person is our representation of a user visiting your site. A person can perform events. And properties help describe both events and people.

What are people?

People are the visitors on your sites. A person in Kissmetrics represents the physical person behind the computer that came to view your blog, website or app.

To understand how people are identified within Kissmetrics, take a look at here.

What are events?

Events are the actions that your users are taking on your site or within your app.

If you are using JavaScript to track on your site, you will automatically track some events, including:

Event Name	Description
Visited Site	The event will be triggered upon each visit to the site (with up to a 30-minute window of inactivity accounted for before re-firing another Visited Site event)
Search Engine Hit	The event will be triggered upon arriving to the site from a search engine
Ad Campaign Hit	The event will be triggered from any ad campaign tagged with UTM parameters, or any Adwords campaign.

The automatically tracked events are a great start but you will also want to track your own. Some examples are:

Event Name	Description
Signed Up	This event will be triggered when a visitor completes the sign-up
Logged in	The event will be triggered any time a visitor logs into your site or application
Completed check out	This event will be triggered when a visitor completes the checkout process
Subscribed to newsletter	This event will be triggered when a visitor subscribes to your newsletter

What are properties?

Properties are additional bits of information describing your users and their actions. By using properties you are able to segment reports and dive deeper into your data.

Properties are passed as key-value pairs.

If you are using JavaScript to track on your site, you will automatically track some properties, including:

Property Name	Description	Property Value Example
Customer ID	the customer's unique identifier	abc123=
Campaign Source/medium/name	When a link directing to your site is using UTM parameters	Linkedin
Referrer	The URL that the visitor came from	www.example.com/blog/post1
KM Landing Page	The first page a user visited at the start of a session	www.kissmetricshq.com
KM Returning	Whether the user is new or returning	Returning
KM Device Type	This is the device being used by the user	Computer vs Smartphone vs Tablet
KM Device Category	The type of device the user is operating	Computer vs Mobile
KM Screen Resolution	The size of the user's screen	1280x800
KM Operating System	The operating system of the above device	Mac OS X
KM Operating System Version	The version of the above operating system	Mac OS X 10.11.6
KM Browser	This is the browser that is being used by the user	Safari
KM Browser Version	The browser and version the user is running	Safari 8.1
KM City	The city from where the user is visiting your site	San Francisco
KM Region	The state or region from where the user is visiting your site	California
KM Country	The country from where the user is visiting your site	United States
KM Continent	This is the Continent from where the user is visiting your site	North America

These starter properties are helpful, but you will also want to track your own. Some examples are:

Property Name	Description	Property Value Example
Product Viewed Name	The name of the product the user viewed	Leather Notebook
Promo Code Used	The promo code that was used during checkout	SUMMERSALE
Video Played Name	The name of the video that was watched by the user	Beginners Guide

Example

Now that you understand these concepts separately, let’s see how they all work together.

Janet is a first-time visitor to your e-commerce site. She originally arrived at the site from a post she saw on a fashion blog. While she was on your site, she viewed 2 dresses, added 1 to her shopping cart, created an account and ultimately left without buying anything.

In this scenario, who is the person? What are the events? And what properties should be passed?

Person	Events	Properties
Janet	Visited Site	KM Returning: No
	Viewed Product	Product: Red Dress
	Viewed Product	Product: White+Gold Dress
	Added to Cart	Product: White+Gold Dress
	Signed Up	Name: Janet Email: [email protected]

Next Steps

Once you understand these concepts and which events you will want to track, you will need to set them up. There are a few different methods to do so, you can get started with the Event Manager or the JavaScript Library.