Tealium Plugin for Brightcove Player

In this topic, you will learn the how to use the Tealium iQ tag manager with Brightcove Player.

Overview

The Tealium plugin allows you to integrate the Tealium iQ tag manager with Brightcove Player. With this, you can track Brightcove Player events using your Tealium Universal Data Hub.

Tag managers allow you to add and publish tags without having to use code. Because they are a client-side solution, tag managers enable you to collect data across different marketing technologies. This empowers marketers by giving them the ability to collect user and player data across a diverse set of collection points.

Since Tealium iQ is not designed for a specific platform, you can use it with the product of your choice. With Tealium iQ, you have access to a tag marketplace, where you can find tag templates for most of your needs.

The Tealium Tag Manager Plugin is supported with the Brightcove Player version 6.36.5 and later.

Tag management terminology

Here are some of the common terms you will encounter when using Tealium iQ.

Term Description
Event Events are data points used to send data to your reporting tool. These are related to video loading and playback.
Profile Your tag management system account can have multiple containers (profiles), with its own tags and variables. Each profile can have multiple environments, usually set up for development, staging and production.
Rule Rules tell when tag code should be added to a page. These are user-defined conditions.
Tag Tags are code snippets placed on your web page to collect user interaction data. Tag management systems simplify the process of adding tags to your site, requiring that you only supply the tag id and tag event type.
Tag marketplace Tag marketplace templates provide code snippets for deploying a tag. While this reduces the amount of code knowledge needed, some familiarity with JavaScript and HTML is required for successful implementation.
Tracker Trackers are objects that collect, store data and send that data to Tealium iQ tag manager.
Universal Data Object (UDO) utag_data object A JavaScript variable called utag_data which contains the collection of data that lives in the code of your web page. This JavaScript object is used to pass information from your website to your tag manager container. You can then use this information to populate variables and activate events in your tag configurations.

Getting started

Review the Tealium iQ Tag Management documentation to setup your account. The setup will include the following:

  • Define tag configurations
  • Define triggers to fire beacons
  • Create variables for events and custom dimensions

Using the Brightcove plugin

Like other Brightcove Player plugins, the Tealium plugin must be loaded into the player.

Using Studio

The following steps detail using Video Cloud Studio to load the plugin.

  1. Open the PLAYERS module and either create a new player or locate the player to which you wish to add the plugin.
  2. Select the link for the player to open the player's properties.
  3. Select Plugins in the left navigation menu.
  4. Next, select the Add a Plugin button, and then select Brightcove Plugin.

    Add a Plugin button
    Add a Plugin button
  5. Expand the Brightcove Plugin dropdown and select Tealium.

    Tealium plugin
    Tealium plugin
  6. Now, you are now ready to configure your analytics platform (Google Analytics for example) with the dimensions that you want to track. Review the dimensions that are available, see the Events and attributes section of this document.

  7. In the Options(JSON) text box, enter the events and attributes you would like to track. Field descriptions:

    • paramsToTrack - List of attributes you want to track
    • eventsToTrack - List of events you want to track
    • account - Tealium account name
    • profile - Tealium profile name
    • env - Tealium environment name
     

    Here is an example:

    {
      "paramsToTrack": {
        "video_playhead": "video_playhead",
        "video_platform": "video_platform",
        "video_length": "video_length",
        "video_name": "video_name",
        "video_id": "video_id",
        "video_milestone": "video_milestone"
      },
      "eventsToTrack": {
        "video_load": "video_load",
        "video_play": "video_play",
        "video_complete": "video_complete",
        "video_watch": "video_watch",
        "video_pause": "video_pause",
        "ad_start": "ad_start",
        "ad_end": "ad_end"
      },
      "env": "your environment",
      "profile": "your profile",
      "account": "your account"
    }
  8. Select the Save button. You will now see the Tealium plugin added to the list of plugins for your player.

    Save button
    Save button
  9. To publish the player, select Publish & Embed > Publish Changes.
  10. To close the dialog, select Close.
  11. Return to the MEDIA and publish your video or playlist using the player you just updated for Tealium.

    When your player loads and the user interacts with the player, the specified events and parameters will be tracked.

Events and attributes

The following events and attributes are available to send to Tealium iQ.

Events

These events come from your player. All of these events send the common attributes. Some events may send additional attributes.

Event Type Description
video_load Standard When video metadata has finished loading in the player.
video_play Standard When playback has been initiated either by the user or with autoplay
Additional attributes sent:
  • video_playhead
video_watch [1] Custom This Includes additional rendition selection, bitrate measurements, and buffering information.
Additional attributes sent:
  • video_playhead
  • video_milestone
video_pause Standard When the user pauses video playback
Additional attributes sent:
  • video_playhead
ad_start Custom When ad playback has been initiated
ad_end Custom When ad playback has ended
video_complete Standard Triggered when video playback ends.
Notes

The following notes refer to the table above.

[1] The video_watch event is sent at the following milestones:

  • 25% Milestone – When the video has been watched in the range of 25% to 50% of the total video duration
  • 50% Milestone - When the video has been watched in the range of 50% to 75% of the total video duration
  • 75% Milestone - When the video has been watched in the range of 75% to 95% of the total video duration
  • 100% Milestone - When the video has been watched for 100% of the total video duration

The video watched percentage (video_watch) can be calculated as follows (similar to video_engagement event in Google and Adobe analytics):

Video watched percentage = duration the user actually watched / total video duration

For example, in a 20 second video, the 25% milestone can be achieved in both of the below cases

  • User watches from 0-5 seconds
  • User watches from 0-1st second and skip to 11th second and watch to 15th second

In both of the above cases, the user watched 5 seconds, so milestone will be reported as 25%.

Common attributes

These attributes are common across all events.

Name Type Description
video_id String Brightcove video Id that originated the event
video_length Number Length of the video specified by the video attribute
video_name String Name of the video specified by the video attribute
video_platform String Platform in which video is running

Event-specific attributes

These attributes are related to a specific event.

Name Type Description
video_playhead Number The time in the video at which the event is triggered.
Sent with events:
  • video_play
  • video_pause
  • video_watch
video_milestone Number The percentage of video completed at the time of triggering of event.
Sent with event:
  • video_watch

Displaying data in Tealium

Player actions trigger the plugin to send analytical data to your Tealium Universal Data Hub. To view the events and attributes, follow these steps:

  1. Go to https://my.tealiumiq.com
  2. Login to Universal Data Hub using your credentials.
  3. In the left navigation, expand EventStream.
  4. In the left navigation, select Live Events.

    Live events
    Live events
  5. You should see the dashboard with real-time event data.

    Dashboard
    Dashboard
  6. Select an event to see the attributes associated with that event.

Changelog

See the Tealium Plugin Release Notes.

For historical release notes, see the changelog here.