Web Analytics Connector

Prerequisites

Examples, screenshots, and procedures in this document are created using the advanced content creation tools that are available in the ExactTarget user interface. You must enable these tools in order to use the information in this document.

Audience

This document is intended for ExactTarget users who are considering using the web analytics connector to associate email information with web analytics information. This document provides a high-level view of the processes involved. Consulting services from ExactTarget may be required to achieve optimal results. Contact your ExactTarget representative for more information on this feature, for consulting services and how to activate this feature for your account.

The intended audience for this document includes users with an active web analytics service. You can obtain web analytics information from several different sources, including the following:

• Google
• WebTrends
• Coremetric
• Omniture

What Is the Web Analytics Connector

The Web Analytics Connector is a collection of tools in the ExactTarget application that assists in tagging your links to enable you to pass information to your web analytics tool through the links in your emails.

When a subscriber clicks a link in your email, your web analytics tool collects the URL used to call the page. By including variables in the target URL of the links in your email, you can connect ExactTarget data to your web analytics data. For example, if you included the campaign ID in the target URL of your links, you could identify the web traffic generated by that campaign.

There are five levels of data that you can include in your links:

1. Account level
2. Email level
3. Campaign level
4. Subscriber level
5. Link level

Why Use the Web Analytics Connector

Web analytics services track a vast amount of data related to activity on your website. For example, the Google Analytics dashboard gives you an overview of activity on your site, and you can use reports and other feature to drill down into your information and get a better idea of how your users interact with your site and how you can improve those interactions for them and for you.

When a subscriber clicks a link to your website from your ExactTarget email, your web analytics package tracks the web activity. The power of this information lies in focusing your marketing messaging through the web channel. However, your web analytics data is even more powerful when connected to the subscriber information in ExactTarget. The connection allows you to compare the effectiveness of campaigns, lists, and even sections of email real estate based on metrics like page hits or conversions.

To achieve this link between your email and web analytics tool, you can use the Web Analytics Connector. This document contains information on how to maximize this connection in ExactTarget. You must also configure your web analytics tool to accept and analyze the information that you pass in.

You can use the Web Analytics Connector to gain insight into how your email marketing efforts perform in comparison to each other and to other online marketing channels. By integrating email and web analytics systems, you can achieve closed-loop marketing.

The tools that make up the Web Analytics Connector automate the process of adding attribute data to the target URLs of your email links. While you can choose to enter this information manually every time you create a link, the Web Analytics Connector helps you streamline the process and prevent keying errors.

The Web Analytics Connector is a tool to help you optimize your efforts and your returns. You can use the tool to perform segmentation, associate deferred conversions to campaigns, measure multi-channel impact, and generally strengthen your marketing initiatives.

Scenario

Northern Trail Outfitters wants to compare the effectiveness of a new campaign against an existing campaign in converting subscribers to online buyers. In order to identify which campaign originated web page activity, Northern Trail Outfitters wants to use the ExactTarget Web Analytics Connector to include the campaign ID in the URLs of the emails sent with each campaign. While each campaign may contain several email messages, each message within a campaign includes the same campaign ID so that Northern Trail Outfitters can determine the efficacy of the campaign, as the analytics tool can use the campaign ID to determine which campaign initiated web traffic.

Northern Trail Outfitters determines that the ExactTarget application needs to pass the campaign code in the email links in the following format:

et_cid=[campaign code]

Northern Trail Outfitters contacts ExactTarget to request enablement of the email-level attributes with the Web Analytics Connector.

When the attribute is enabled, the marketer includes the campaign code in the send wizard when sending the existing campaign. On the Identification screen of the send wizard, he enters wc1 in the Additional Info field.

Links in this email now contain the following string at the end of the target URL:

et_cid=wc1

Next, Northern Trail Outfitters creates the new campaign and specifies the campaign code in the process. In the my email workspace, Northern Trail Outfitters clicks the Create button to start the email creation wizard. On the Create New Email screen of the wizard, there is a new section called Additional Email Attributes. Northern Trail Outfitters enters the campaign code in the AdditionalEmailAttribute1 field and clicks the Next button to continue the wizard.

Link in this email now contains the following string at the end of the target URL:

et_cid=wc2

Northern Trail Outfitters creates two random groups from the mailing list. The first group receives email messages from the first campaign (with links tagged with et_cid=wc1). The second group receives the email messages from the second campaign (with links tagged with et_cid=wc2). As subscribers click the links in the emails, the web analytics tool can identify which campaign drove the traffic to the webpage based on the et_cid value in the target URL of the link. The web analytics tool can continue to track the subscribers, including whether the visit results in a purchase and the value of that purchase. This process gives Northern Trail Outfitters the information to compare the effectiveness of the two campaigns.

Later, Northern Trail Outfitters decides to expand their campaigns using SMS messages and Social Forward functionality. Because links can be wrapped in those instances as well, Northern Trail Outfitters can track clicks from those sources as well and incorporate that information into their web analytics statistics.

How to Plan for Web Analytic Integration

Use the following steps to plan for web analytic integration. It may be helpful to discuss the options with your web analytics provider and your ExactTarget account manager. After you complete this procedure, you can contact ExactTarget to enable the integration.

NOTE: As part of the web analytics connector purchase, ExactTarget enables the connector to pass the campaign code. More advanced configurations might require a service agreement.

1. Determine the data that you want the ExactTarget application to pass to your web analytics tool.

   The following table includes some common data used with the web analytic integration. This is not an exhaustive list:

   Indicator identifying the link as coming from an ExactTarget email	Account Level
   Unique identifiers of the Lock and Publish account that originated the email	Account Level
   Campaign code	Email Level
   Subscriber ID or Subscriber Key*	Subscriber Level
   Link code	Link Level

   
   

   NOTE: The subscriber ID is an email address while a subscriber key can be any value that you use to identify subscribers. For example, if you import subscribers from your CRM system, you might prefer to use the identifier used by the CRM within  ExactTarget. If you use the subscriber key in your system, you should include the subscriber key, rather than the subscriber ID, when you set up your web analytics connector.

2. Determine the data levels to implement based on the data you identified in step 1. You will use this information to determine which procedure to use to include each piece of data in the email links.
3. Determine the structure of how the data should to appear in the link URL. For example, you might want ExactTarget to append a string such as the following to the end of the links:

et_lpid=[account number]&et_rid=[subscriberID]&et_cid=[campaign ID]&linkid=[link ID]

How to Include Email-Level Data when Creating a New Email

Before you can use this procedure, you must complete the following procedures:

• Plan for web analytic integration. See the section How to Plan for Web Analytic Integration for more information.
• Contact ExactTarget to enable email-level data in email links.

Use the following steps to include email-level data in the links that appear in your emails:

1. Click the Content tab in the navigation toolbar.
2. Click my emails. The Emails workspace appears.
3. Click the Create button from the toolbar in the emails workspace. The Email Creation wizard appears.
4. On the Create New Email screen, enter the email-level data in the fields in the Additional Email Attributes section.

   You can enter up to 4,000 characters in this field. However, many browsers restrict URLs to 2,000 characters. You should consider this browser limitation when setting the value of the additional email attribute.

5. Complete the Email Creation wizard.

How to Include Email-Level Data with an Existing Email Message

Before you can use this procedure, you must complete the following procedures:

• Plan for web analytic integration. See the section How to Plan for Web Analytic Integration for more information.
• Contact ExactTarget to enable email-level data in email links.

Use the following steps to include email-level data in the links that appear in your emails:

1. Click the Content tab in the navigation toolbar.
2. Click my emails. The Emails workspace appears.
3. Select the checkbox next to the desired email.
4. Click the Properties button.
5. Enter the email-level data in the Additional Email Attributes field.

   You can enter up to 4,000 characters in this field. However, many browsers restrict URLs to 2,000 characters. You should consider this browser limitation when setting the value of the additional email attribute.

    
6. Click the Save Changes button.

How to Include Email-Level Data with the Send Wizard

Before you can use this procedure, you must complete the following procedures:

• Plan for web analytic integration. See the How to Plan for Web Analytic Integration for more information.
• Contact ExactTarget to enable email-level data in email links.

Use the following steps to include email-level data in the links that appear in your emails:

1. Click the Content tab in the navigation toolbar.
2. Click My Emails. The Emails workspace appears.
3. Select the checkbox next to the email to send.
4. Click the Send button. The Send wizard appears.
5. Enter the email-level data in the Additional Info fields on the Identification screen.

   You can enter up to 4,000 characters in this field. However, many browsers restrict URLs to 2,000 characters. You should consider this browser limitation when setting the value of the additional email attribute.

6. Complete the wizard.

How to Include Link-Level Data in Email Links

1. Click the Content tab in the navigation toolbar.
2. Click my emails. The Emails workspace appears.
3. Create or open an email.
4. Create or modify the text in a content area.
5. Create a link in the text. The Insert Link window appears.
6. Enter the target of the link in the Link URL field, including the link-level data.

How to Set Up Your System to Include Subscriber-Level Data in Email Links

When you plan to connect ExactTarget with your web analytics software (see How to Plan for Web Analytic Integration) and contact ExactTarget to enable subscriber-level data in email links, the subscriber-level data that you requested appears in your email links automatically.

How to Use Web Analytics Tracking and the Enhanced Connector

Conditional tagging can be accomplished using the WAT (Web Analtyics Tracking) AMPscript function along with the associated brand tag (ENHANCED_WEB_ANALYTICS_TRACKING). The customer would need to tag all the links manually. This capability may work with existing Web Analytics connector functionality, but that has not been tested. The WAT functionality would allow the customer to have two profiles for Web Analytics Tracking (one for anchors and one for standard links).

For example, review the sample Omniture brand tag below:

standard,et_cid=%%jobid%%&et_rid=%%subscriber_id%% 
anchor,et_cid=%%jobid%%&et_rid=%%subscriber_id%%#%%WATP(1)%%

You would code the links as shown below:

http://www.example.com/daily/tools/default.asp?%%=WAT('standard')=%%

and

http://www.example.com/daily/tools/default.asp?%%=WAT('anchor','anchor_value')=%%