Configure a Print Campaign: Responses

Each Campaign can be configured with specific link tracking details, such as which links to track, what to call those links, and what append codes or Tags to use. The platform will parse your Campaign message content to attempt to identify links within the content.

To configure Link Tracking in your Campaign:

1. If your Campaign contains an External Content Block, and if that External Content Block contains links, the platform enables tracking of those links by default. Optionally you can change this default behavior. Next to "External Link Tracking," click "Do Not Track Links." Please note that this option is displayed only if your Campaign contains an External Content Block with links.  

2. Next to "Link Tracking," select "Track All Links" to enable link tracking. Or, depending on the Campaign channel, you may have the option to "Track Some Links." If you select this option, you'll need to further select which format versions you want to track (HTML, Plain Text, etc.).

3. If you have multiple domains set up for your account, the "Link Tracking Domain" drop-down menu is displayed. From this menu, select a domain.

4. Depending on the Campaign channel, you may see a "Shorten Links" check box. Place a check in this check box if you'd like to use a URL Shortener to convert a URL into a condensed format. This option is mainly intended for the SMS Text channel, which has very strict character limits.

5. Optionally, in the "Append Codes" field, enter the Key Value Pair for the Append Code (or optionally, multiple Append Codes). It's not necessary to enter the query string delimiter (?); the platform will add that automatically for you. If entering multiple Append Codes, be sure separate each Key Value Pair with an ampersand (&).

Note: Append Codes are an optional feature used for web tracking purposes through your own tracking system, or through third-party vendors like Omniture and Google Analytics. The code (or codes) entered in this field will be appended to each tracked link in the campaign.

6. The "Links Found in Content" section lists all of the links that the system found within the message content, including any links used within Looping Blocks. In the "Track?" column, place a check mark next to each link that you want the system to track for reporting purposes.

7. The individual links will be tracked in reports generated by the platform. Cheetah Digital's best practice is to provide "friendly" names for the links to make these reports easier to read. For example, instead of viewing a URL like "http://www.mycompany.com/homepage.aspx," a friendly name of “Home Page” can be assigned.

In addition to improving report readability, the use of friendly names allows you to keep links distinct from each other, even if they go to the same destination URL. For example, you might have two links to your company's home page within your message content -- one within the header and one within the footer. By giving these two links different friendly names ("Home Header" and "Home Footer" for example), you can track these two links separately.

The system provides several different ways to assign a friendly name for a link:

• Define the link and the friendly name in the Link Library   

• Define the friendly name within the Content Editor when you build the message, using one of the following methods:

• Within HTML content, add a name attribute ("data-link-name") to the anchor tag. For example:

<a data-link-name="Cheetah Digital home" href="http://www.cheetahdigital.com">Cheetah Digital Home Page</a> 

• Within either HTML or Text content, use a new URL merge tag to specify the friendly name. For example:

{@Cheetah Digital home|http://www.cheetahdigital.com@}

Note: The link name parameter can be used only in HTML or Text format versions. Also, links contained within Looping Blocks will not support the link name parameter.

• If the friendly name has not previously been defined through the Link Library, or within the Content Editor, then the system will use a default name, such as "Link 01" followed by the URL. You can manually override this default name, and enter a new friendly name in the "Links Found in Content" list. When you launch the Campaign, the system will automatically add this link / friendly name to the Link Library.

Note: In order for the platform to recognize the link friendly name, the link name and URL (or href tag) must be located in the same content source. For example, if you have links contained within Content Blocks used within a Campaign, the Content Block would need to contain both the link name parameter and the URL or href tag.

8. Optionally, to assign a Tag, click the Tag field next to a link. The system displays a menu of every Tag value used within the current system. You can pick one or more of these tags, or type in a new tag and press Enter. To remove a tag, click the "X" icon next to the tag value.

Tags are an organizational tool that can be used to classify links into custom groups for reporting and tracking purposes. Campaign reports (see Campaign Report: Link Click Activity) will show click responses rolled up by Tag value, allowing you to analyze the combined performance of a group of links. For example, you could assign all of the links in your navigation menu with the Tag "navigation."  This Tag could then be used to view click activity for all links with the "navigation" Tag. Also, Tags can be used as Filter criteria when building an Audience for a future Campaign, so you could select all subscribers who clicked on a "navigation" link, for example. Link tags are a Campaign-level setting; these tags can't be defined on the Link Library screen, but instead only on the Campaign screen.

9. Optionally, to test that the URLs in your links are all valid, click Responses > Links > Validate Links in the Tool Ribbon. The system "pings" each URL to see if it gets a response within an optimal amount of time. The results of this test are displayed within the "Valid?" column -- either "Valid" or "Unable to Verify." If you get the "Unable to Verify" message, check that the text of your URL is correct, and that the target link will be working at the time of the Campaign delivery. Please note that the Validate Links feature is not available for every channel.

10. The "Globally Excluded" section lists all of the links found in the message content that have been explicitly set to "Do not track" through the Link Library.

Messaging integrates with Google Analytics -- a free service offered by Google that provides website tracking, reporting, and insights into your customers. Reports from Google Analytics are then made available from within the Messaging platform, to help you review the performance of your Campaign or Web Page. Before you can begin using Google Analytics, you must complete the onboarding steps -- please see Google Analytics Setup for more details on that process.

In order for Google Analytics to parse out customer activity from a particular Campaign or Web Page, you must configure certain query string parameters in the links that are included in the content. To define these query string parameters:

1. In the Tool Ribbon, click Append Google Analytics. A new "Google Analytics Tracking" section is displayed within the "Responses" section. This new section displays the Google parameters.

2. For each Google parameter, enter the desired value for this Campaign.

Note: The Google tracking parameters will be automatically appended to all tracked URLs in your Campaign or Web Page; they will not be appended to URLs if sending Proofs.

Keywords are special words or phrases that, when detected within a customer's SMS text message, can be used for two primary purposes: 1) to trigger an automated response, and / or  2) to capture customer-provided data.

To add a Keyword-driven automated response to your Campaign:

1. In the Tool Ribbon, click Responses > Add Keyword Response. The "SMS Keyword Responses" dialog box is displayed.

2. From the "Short Code" drop-down menu, select the Short Code to which customers will text their responses.

3. From the "Keyword" drop-down menu, select the desired Keyword Group.

Note: Only Keyword Groups that do NOT use Regular Expressions (and therefore are not being used for data capture purposes) are available in this drop-down menu.

4. From the "Match Phone Field" drop-down menu, select the "Phone" field on the Campaign's source table. The system will look for a match between the mobile phone number on the customer's response and the field you select here, in order to identify the customer.

5. In the "Confirmation Message" text field, optionally enter the confirmation message that will automatically get sent back to the customer upon receipt of one of the Keywords in the selected Keyword Group.

Note: If you enter a message in this "Confirmation Message" field, AND also enter a message in the Campaign's main "Content" field, the consumer will receive BOTH messages. This may or may not be desirable, depending on your Campaign strategy. If you want to send only one message, you should enter your message in only one of these two places, both of which have their advantages. The "Content" field on the main Campaign screen offers more sophisticated options regarding personalization, Content Blocks, etc. The downside to using that field is that this message is slower to send since it goes through the full message deployment process. The "Confirmation Message" field, on the other hand, does not offer any personalization options, but it sends almost instantly.

6. Click save response. The system adds a new section named "SMS Keywords" within the "Responses" section of the Campaign detail screen. From this new section, you can see a list of all the automated response Keyword Groups assigned to this Campaign.

7. If you need to remove a Keyword Group, click the remove button ("X" icon) next to the group name. If you need to edit the Keyword Group, click the Edit icon to bring up the SMS Keyword Responses dialog box.

For more information on setting up Keyword Groups, see the SMS Keywords topic.

Keywords are special words or phrases that, when detected within a customer's SMS text message, can be used for two primary purposes: 1) to trigger an automated response, and / or  2) to capture customer-provided data.

If you're using Keywords to capture data (such as an email address, for example) on the customer's response:

1. In the Tool Ribbon, click Responses > Add SMS Data Capture. The "SMS Data Capture" dialog box is displayed.

2. From the "Short Code" drop-down menu, select the Short Code to which customers will text their responses.

3. From the "Keyword" drop-down menu, select the desired Keyword Group.

Note: Only Keyword Groups that use Regular Expressions (and therefore are intended for data capture purposes) are available in this drop-down menu.

4. From the "Match Phone Field" drop-down menu, select the "Phone" field on the Campaign's source table. The system will look for a match between the mobile phone number on the customer's response and the field you select here, in order to identify the customer.

5. From the "Update Field" drop-down menu, select the field in your database that the system will update with the data provided by the customer in his or her text message.

6. Click save response. The system adds a new section named "SMS Data" within the "Responses" section of the Campaign detail screen. From this new section, you can see a list of all data capture Keyword Groups assigned to this Campaign.

7. If you need to remove a Keyword Group, click the remove button ("X" icon) next to the group name. If you need to edit the Keyword Group, click the Edit icon to bring up the SMS Data Capture dialog box.

For more information on setting up Keyword Groups, see the SMS Keywords topic.

The Custom Responses feature allows you to bring external response information into Messaging. For example, this information could consist of data collected from "off-line" channels, such as a print Campaign or a call center, or possibly from your own internal systems, or another vendor. You can import this information into Messaging, tag it with a Campaign ID, and the platform will include those responses within the response reports for that Campaign.

To define how to process custom responses to your marketing Campaign:

1. In the Tool Ribbon, click Responses > Add Custom Response. The "Custom Response" pop-up window is displayed.

2. From the "Response Table" drop-down menu, select the table where you're loading custom response data.

3. From the "Group By" drop-down menu, select the field by which you want to group the responses.

4. From the "Aggregation" drop-down menu, select how you want to aggregate the responses.

5. From the "Aggregate Value" drop-down menu, select an aggregate value.

6. From the "Time Dimension" drop-down menu, select a time dimension.

7. Click save response. The system adds a new section named "Custom" within the "Responses" section of the Campaign detail screen. From this new section, you can see a list of all the custom response tables assigned to this Campaign.

8. If you need to remove a custom response table, click the remove button ("X" icon) next to the table. If you need to edit the custom response table, click the edit button (pen icon) to bring up the "Custom Response" dialog box.