Devices are everywhere.

Phones, tablets, gaming consoles, smart TVs, and computers are just a few of the many internet-enabled devices, and the number and range of these devices is only going to increase as time goes on. 

While the ubiquitous nature of devices allows you to connect with your audience on diverse platforms, at the same time, ensuring positive customer experiences and accurate data collection across those platforms can be a challenge. 

Data Accuracy Across Devices

The backbone of your customer experiences and the future of your business relies on accurate data. Without accurate data, you will lack confidence in your decision-making, you will waste time and resources on unreliable (and even false) customer insights, and your customers will receive subpar experiences. 

To defend yourself against poor decisions, wasted time and resources, and subpar customer experiences that are so often associated with inaccurate data, you will need to dedicate time and resources to maintaining accurate data across all the devices your customers use to interact with you. 

You need to ensure apps, gaming console interfaces, and different web platforms are all functioning in sync with your implementation and that analytics tags are in place and firing properly. 

But maintaining the data integrity of your MarTech implementation across all these devices can be cumbersome, especially if done manually. 

Attempting to manually spot check your MarTech implementation across devices by combing through layers and layers of code is an incredibly time-consuming endeavor, and is easily plagued by human error. 

As a result, you will be much better off using a proxy tool that allows you to quickly test and validate your MarTech implementation on various devices—a proxy tool like LiveConnect by ObservePoint. 

What Is a Proxy Tool?

A proxy tool is a type of proxy server that captures, records and then passes off all the network requests coming from a client. If you set up a proxy tool on your own device, as you navigate the web, your proxy tool records all the network requests being transmitted (including the network requests associated with your MarTech implementation), allowing you to see those requests within the proxy tool for debugging purposes. 

As opposed to limited tools like Charles or Fiddler, LiveConnect serves as an enhanced proxy tool catered toward monitoring your MarTech implementation.

LiveConnect allows you to connect and operate various devices as a user would, while detecting all the tagging requests associated with your MarTech implementation in real-time. This real-time display of your tagging implementation in action will give you a clear view of your MarTech implementation’s functionality as it relates to different devices.

One of the main benefits of LiveConnect above and beyond other proxy tools is that LiveConnect is also enhanced by an integration with Selenium.

Selenium Integration

LiveConnect’s Selenium integration allows you to use your existing browser automation scripts to efficiently test your site or app for accurate analytics.

The LiveConnect Selenium integration (combining browser automation with proxy capabilities) makes LiveConnect an ideal solution for repeatable testing of your MarTech solution on both computers and apps (the app version of Selenium is called Appium), giving you more power to ensure accurate data and create positive customer experiences across various devices.

But it doesn’t stop there. LiveConnect is designed with a handful of other beneficial features to make managing accurate data easier across all devices.

LiveConnect Key Features

LiveConnect comes equipped with the following features to help make analytics testing across all your devices simple and clean:

• Real Device Testing
• Live Journey Debugging
• Reusable Test Cases
• Request Log
• Custom Exports

Let’s jump in and take a look at each feature.

Real Device Testing

The Real Device Testing feature within LiveConnect gives you the ability to easily use ObservePoint’s interface to run tests on different devices. You can create tests on your devices by simply connecting and operating those devices. 

Once you connect to a device and start operating, LiveConnect will capture all the marketing technology present and measure performance against your predefined rules—giving you insights on any tagging errors that may be present and freeing you from having to rely on complicated emulators. Additionally, Real Device Testing allows you to engage in cross-app and cross-browser testing to ensure you’re covering all your bases. 

Live Journey Debugging

LiveConnect’s Live Journey Debugging allows you to run live test journeys on your device to discover tagging discrepancies on the fly. These test journeys give you clarity on which tags are firing on specific pages of your website or app. You can even compare these tests over time as you make adjustments.

Live Journey Debugging also allows you to use rule-based testing to set up expectations based on your tagging strategy and then see whether those expectations are being met or not. 

Reusable Test Cases

Over time your site or app will change—and throughout these changes LiveConnect will allow you to efficiently compare expectations and rules in each new iteration with Reusable Test Cases. 

The Reusable Test Cases feature enables you to save rules that were applied to a previous journey and then re-apply those same rules to new journeys and tests for quick comparison. This feature will give you insights into how the changes you made on your site or app are impacting your tagging strategy and help you feel confident in your data accuracy moving forward. 

Request Log

LiveConnect’s Request Log displays all the network requests being produced on your site or app as you run test scripts. 

The Request Log can be efficiently navigated using the filtered search option, which allows you to find different requests by entering keywords or regular expressions. Additionally, the Request Log is where you can toggle SSL proxies on an off if they are creating issues with your scripts. 

Custom Exports

The Custom Export feature allows you to export your testing data as a customized Excel file for further review. This customization capability enables you to zero in on the portions of your testing data you care the most about. 

You can customize your export based on your testing steps, the request log, rules used in your test, and tagging details. As you use the Custom Export feature, you can feel confident that your data will be organized in a way that meets your needs and allows you to efficiently perform additional analysis.

The combination of the aforementioned features and the Selenium Integration will provide you with the necessary functionality to ensure your MarTech implementation is functioning as desired.

Ensure Accurate Data and Create Meaningful Customer Relationships across Various Devices

The end goal of ensuring accurate data is to create meaningful relationships with your customers, and now that your customers are interacting with you on so many different devices, you need to collect accurate data on those various devices. 

Using LiveConnect to build a solid foundation of accurate data across devices will enable you to create these meaningful customer relationships that help your business stay competitive, increase customer loyalty, and continually bring in more revenue. 

To see how ObservePoint and LiveConnect can help you achieve your analytics testing goals, schedule a demo today.

This article is part of our Tag Auditing & Governance Guide: 

Tag Governance Strategy

• The Tag Governance Framework: How to Govern Your Analytics and Marketing Tags
• The Total Ecobomic Impact of ObservePoint
• Top 3 Challenges of Data Governance & Performance Measurement
• 2020 Digital Analytics and Governance Report

Tag Audtiting Training

• Tag Auditing for Beginners
• 3 Ways to Optimize Your Website with Test Automation [Webinar]
• Migrating from Adobe DTM to Launch: A 4-Phased Approach [Webinar]
• Migrating from Adobe DTM to Adobe Launch [Infographic]
• How to Conduct a Google Analytics Audit
• 21 Point Google Analytics Audit
• How to Conduct Cross-Device Analytics Testing with LiveConnect
• Analytics Testing with ObservePoint Is an Ongoing Practice

Case Study

• How Carnival Corporation Made a Smooth Transition from DTM to Launch with ObservePoint

About the Author

Brandon Watson is what you would call a “jack of all trades” when it comes to product management. His specialties include UI design, strategic planning, user stories, disruptive technologies, data mining, consumer and enterprise software, and more. With his experience as a product manager for over eight years at four different companies, Brandon provides new insights and improvements that drive results over and over again.

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