Impression Tracking

Defining an Impression Region with AMPscript

You define an impression region in an email by using AMPscript functions:

• BeginImpressionRegion(Name) - identifies the start of an impression region
• EndImpressionRegion(optional Boolean) - closes the last opened impression region. You can pass a parameter to cause the system to call all impression regions.
• ContentArea(AreaID,ImpressionRegionName) - identifies the start of an impression region if you pass a region name as the parameter. Using this function is equivalent to including BeginImpressionRegion() as the first statement in the content area.  Impression regions started in this manner remain open after the function completes.
• ContentAreaByName(AreaName,ImpressionRegionName) - identifies the start of an impression region if you pass a region name as the optional second parameter. Using this function is equivalent to including BeginImpressionRegion() as the first statement in the content area. Impression regions started in this manner remain open after the function completes.

AMPscript Code Example

The following sample includes an offer for a holiday sale within the body of an email based on the state of residence of the subscriber.

%%[ If Auxiliary4 == "State1" then ]%%  %%=BeginImpressionRegion(Banner Placement)=%%<a href="http://www.northerntrails.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat157500050008&type=category" alias="Banner: Holiday Sales - Ohio" target="_blank"><img alt="Ohio Holiday Sales" src="http://image.northerntrails.com/lib/fef41d77766c04/m/1/NTO_WeeklyBrand_080209.jpg" width="590" height="37" border="0" style="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle=" _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle=" _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle=" _fckstyle="display: _fckstyle="display: block;" _fckstyle="display: block;"></a>%%=EndImpressionRegion(Banner Placement)=%%  %%[ ElseIf Auxiliary4 == "State2" then ]%%  %%=BeginImpressionRegion(Banner Placement)=%%<a href="http://www.northerntrails.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat157500050006&type=category" alias="Banner: Holiday Sales - Indiana" target="_blank"><img alt="Indiana Holiday Sales" src="http://image.northerntrails.com/lib/fef41d77766c04/m/1/NTO_WeeklyBrand_080209.jpg" width="590" height="37" border="0" style="display: block;"></a>%%=EndImpressionRegion(Banner Placement)=%%

Note: Also IF Banner Placement is a string literal instead of an Attribute/DE Column value, it needs to be quoted:

%%=BeginImpressionRegion("Banner Placement")=%%

The names of impression regions in used in the sample must be fixed (constant strings or numbers). Impression area names are case-sensitive and are stored in the case of their first occurrence.  There is not a limit on the number of unique regions that can be tracked.

If an impression region is not explicitly closed, it is closed at the end of the message being built.  An impression region opened in the HTML version of an email will not remain open when the Text version of the message is built.

Impression regions can be nested.  If three regions are opened without any EndImpressionRegion() calls, all three remain open and the final one opened is the active one returned for resolving the related substitutions.  If one EndImpressionRegion() call is issued, the second region will become the active region and so on.  Issuing EndImpressionRegion(true) will close all open regions.

Two substitutions are supported for impression regions. The %%_ImpressionRegionID%% substitution will return the active region ID or 0 if none is active.  Also supported is an %%_ImpressionRegionName%% substitution that will resolve to the currently active impression region for content that contains the substitution. This will evaluate to an empty string if no impression region has been set.