Website Events (CE) - Zeotap docs

What this is

Website events are user actions on your website — clicks, form submissions, video plays, page scrolls, downloads, page views, and similar interactions — that Zeotap captures as customer engagement (CE) data. This page is the entry point for choosing an implementation method (Web JavaScript, Web Pixel, or a tag manager integration), for configuring which events and which fields to send, and for verifying that events reach your CE source. Website events feed unification, audience segmentation, activation to destinations, and journey orchestration downstream.

Prerequisites

Before configuring website event tracking, confirm you have:

Administrative access to your Zeotap CDP tenant, with permission to create and edit CE sources.
Edit access to your website codebase (for Web JavaScript or Web Pixel) or to your tag manager container (for Google Tag Manager or the Adobe Experience Platform Tag Extension).
A defined inventory of the events you plan to track and the properties each event carries, so you can map them to the CE catalogue.
Your PII policy in writing — the list of dataLayer keys to strip before sending to Zeotap.

Choose an implementation method

Zeotap supports two direct client-side collectors. Select the one that matches how your site is built and who maintains it.

Web JavaScript

Web Pixel

If your organisation manages marketing tags through a tag manager, deploy the Zeotap collector through the tag manager instead of editing the site for each new event.

Adobe Experience Platform Tag Extension

Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Configure event tracking

Follow the guide for the method you selected — each covers its own installation and tag-firing rules. Every method requires the same four decisions:

Name the dataLayer event that represents a page view. The GTM Collect Tag defaults to gtm.js. If your site uses a virtual page-view event such as virtualPageView or customPageView, enter that exact event name in the Page View Tracking Event Name field.
Declare which custom events to track. Use the Event Tracking (Regex) field with a pattern such as ^event_.* to capture every event beginning with event_, or .* to capture every dataLayer event. List individual event names that fall outside the pattern under Special Events.
Declare which events to ignore. Enter internal or purely functional dataLayer pushes (for example internal_debug_event, ui_element_rendered) in the Exclude Events field. Matching is case-sensitive.
Strip fields that must not leave the browser. Enter every dataLayer key that carries Personally Identifiable Information — raw email addresses, full names, precise addresses — in the PII to be Excluded field. country and city are excluded automatically by Zeotap because they are derived from the request IP server-side.

You can also attach Pre-defined Properties — static values (for example event_source: GTM_Zeotap_Tag) or GTM variable references (for example {{Page Path}}) — to every event this tag fires. A Pre-defined Property overrides a same-named field from the dataLayer. A representative Zeotap Collect Tag configuration in GTM:

page_view_tracking_event_name: gtm.js
event_tracking_regex: ^event_.*
special_events:
  - video_played
  - form_submitted_newsletter
exclude_events:
  - internal_debug_event
  - ui_element_rendered
pii_to_be_excluded:
  - email
  - firstName
  - lastName
  - user_address
pre_defined_properties:
  event_source: GTM_Zeotap_Tag
  page_path: "{{Page Path}}"

Anything you omit from PII to be Excluded is sent to Zeotap in the clear. Audit every dataLayer key against your PII policy before publishing the tag, and re-audit whenever a developer adds a new dataLayer push.

For the complete and current list of fields Zeotap automatically excludes from ingestion, see the blacklisted-fields reference in your CDP documentation or contact your Zeotap representative.

Verify the setup

Confirm events reach Zeotap before you rely on them for downstream unification, audiences, or activation.

Fire a test event on the site. Trigger the tracked interaction in a browser — submit the form, click the button, or load the page you configured.
Inspect the outbound request. Open the browser’s network inspector, filter for the request the Zeotap collector sends, and confirm the request payload carries the event name and properties you configured — and carries no field listed under PII to be Excluded.
The browser network inspector is part of your browser (Chrome DevTools, Firefox Developer Tools, Safari Web Inspector), not the Zeotap CDP. Open it with the browser’s built-in shortcut and switch to the Network tab.
Confirm the event lands in the CE source. Open the CE source that receives these events in the Zeotap CDP and review its recent activity. The event name and properties you fired appear there once the collector request has been accepted.
Map fields to the CE catalogue. Once events arrive, map their fields so downstream unification, audiences, and journeys can use them. See Map the Catalogue for Customer Data (CE).

Troubleshooting

Why this happens

The recurring configuration errors below account for the symptoms customers see when a website event does not arrive at the CE source or arrives with the wrong shape.

Symptom	What it means	Where to look
No events reach the CE source	The dataLayer event name does not match Page View Tracking Event Name or the pattern in Event Tracking (Regex), so the tag never fires	Tag configuration → Page View Tracking Event Name and Event Tracking (Regex)
An event fires but a specific property is missing	The property key is listed under PII to be Excluded, or matches an automatically excluded field (`country`, `city`)	Tag configuration → PII to be Excluded
A dataLayer event keeps firing that you did not intend to track	The event name matches the tracking regex but is not listed in Exclude Events (matching is case-sensitive)	Tag configuration → Exclude Events
A property carries a value that does not match the dataLayer	A Pre-defined Properties entry is overriding the dataLayer value	Tag configuration → Pre-defined Properties
`country` or `city` is missing from the event payload	Zeotap derives these server-side from the request IP and excludes them from client payloads	Blacklisted-fields reference

If none of the rows match your symptom, capture the browser network request for the failing event (headers and body) and the CE source ID, then follow the escalation path in When to contact support.

When to contact support

Contact your Zeotap customer success representative when the network inspector confirms the collector request left the browser but the event does not appear in the CE source after a retry, or when you observe a payload shape you cannot explain against the four configuration fields above. Include in your request:

The CE source ID that should have received the event.
The dataLayer event name and a copy of the dataLayer push (with PII redacted).
The full outbound request the Zeotap collector sent, from the browser network inspector (headers and body, PII redacted).
The timestamp of the test event in your browser’s local timezone.
Your tag configuration for the four fields: Page View Tracking Event Name, Event Tracking (Regex), Exclude Events, and PII to be Excluded.

FAQ

Should I use Web JavaScript, Web Pixel, or a tag manager?

Choose Web JavaScript when engineering owns the site and can add the collector snippet directly. Choose Web Pixel when you need a lightweight, iframe-style deployment for third-party contexts. Choose a tag manager (Adobe Experience Platform Tag Extension or GTM) when marketing owns tag deployment and you want to add or change tracked events without a site code release.

What is the difference between Website Events and App Events?

Website Events (CE) capture user activity on a website through a browser-side collector or a tag manager. App Events (CE) capture user activity inside a mobile application through the Zeotap native Android or iOS SDK. The event model and CE catalogue mapping are aligned, but the collector and the installation path are different.

Can I send events server-to-server instead of from the browser?

Yes — see Send Events Using the API for the server-side event ingestion endpoint. Server-side ingestion is complementary to browser tracking; you can run both against the same CE source.

How do I exclude a field from ingestion without changing my website code?

Add the field’s dataLayer key to the PII to be Excluded list in the Zeotap Collect Tag configuration. The collector strips listed keys from the event payload before sending. Matching is case-sensitive, so include every variant your site emits.

​What this is

​Prerequisites

​Choose an implementation method

Web JavaScript

Web Pixel

Adobe Experience Platform Tag Extension

Google Tag Manager (GTM)

​Configure event tracking

​Verify the setup

​Troubleshooting

​Why this happens

​When to contact support

​FAQ

​Next steps

What this is

Prerequisites

Choose an implementation method

Configure event tracking

Verify the setup

Troubleshooting

Why this happens

When to contact support

FAQ

Next steps