Why are naming conventions important?
The main purpose of a naming convention is organization. Good naming helps you find what you need, understand what items are quickly and easily, and share the information with others effectively. This article aims to help you create a naming convention that serves your needs and continues to serve its purpose over time.
Note that these are our suggestions, but you should also adapt your naming to your particular team and business needs for the most effective use.
Main benefits of having a good naming convention
Some of the key benefits of following a naming convention are:
- Smooth operation: Good naming ensures that your events, templates, and strategies are easy to find, and that it's easy to understand what they are for. This, in turn, helps you make decisions and get to your business goals faster.
- Better consistency: Good naming also helps other team members understand the assets and helps various teams work better together, and achieve better consistency.
- Easy high-level view: Good naming helps you gain a clearer view of your personalization efforts and landscape.
Guidelines for campaigns, experiences, and variations
Naming convention | Campaign
- Location: Where is the experience running?
- Functionality: What is the experience doing?
- Pro tips:
- Use labels to tag test (CMS) vs. event (E) vs. CMS (CMS) for advanced clients
- Leverage notes to record use case hypothesis or new test versions
- Use an ID number, like Test001 or Event001
- Use audience targeting information if intended for just one root audience
Example: Homepage Tabbed Recommendation
Naming convention | Experience:
Audience: Who is being served the experience?
Example: Low intent users
Naming convention | Variation:
Content: What is being served?
Example: Most Popular recommendations
Guidelines for templates
Naming convention:
- Location: Where is the experience running?
- Functionality: What is the experience doing?
- Date: Track the version or date to keep track of template iterations
- Pro tip: Use notes to keep track of new versions of template design and functionality
Example: Homepage Tabbed Recommendations 6.25.22
Guidelines for strategies
Naming convention:
- Location: Where is the experience running?
- Strategy: Algorithm + custom filter rule
- Pro tip: Include audience if applicable
Example: Homepage Tab 1 - Popularity
Guidelines for custom events
Naming Convention:
- Location: Where is the experience running?
- Functionality: What is the experience doing? (click, scroll, download)
- Pro tip: If this is a global event/campaign, include labels “event” and “do not delete” and also include global in the name (Global_FavoriteClick)
Example:
-
- Campaign name: Homepage Recommendations Tab 1 Click Event
- Labels: Event, do not delete
What does the final name look like?
The following examples illustrate how these naming best practices look when applied:
- Campaign: Homepage Tabbed Recommendations
- Experience: Low Intent Users
- Variation: Most Popular Recommendations
- Template: Homepage Tabbed Recommendations 6.25.22
- Strategy: Homepage Tab 1 - Popularity
- Custom event: Homepage Recommendations Tab 1 Click Event
- Audience: Low Intent