Campaign, tracking code and query string parameter - should it be persistent? | Community
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A
azmeister3000
Level 2
September 23, 2024
Question

Campaign, tracking code and query string parameter - should it be persistent?

  • September 23, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 2488 views

in our adobe analytics we use query string parameter to define most of the channel rules. Unfortunately we made a logic mistake where it stated if query string does not contain "xyz" then set it to "social media organic". There were only a few strings set in that clause and so pretty much all traffic got classified to social media organic.

 

We were surprised though because we could see in the raw data from our data feed that sometimes the query string parameter was in the PAGE URL but the channel was being set to social media organic.

 

Looking at the CAMPAIGN field in the data field, which is the tracking code dimension, we can see that the channel gets reclassified for every hit were that is blank. 

 

Two questions;

 

  1. can and should that field be set as persistent so the tracking code/query string parameter is always referencing the most recent in a visit?
  2. the social media organic rule was fairly low down, position 6 and there are hits in a visit where the query string parameter from higher order rules is present but the channel is being wrongly classified as social media organic (the campaign field is blank). Why is it looking at the campaign field in these instances rather than the query string parameter?

many thanks in advance

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1 reply

Jennifer_Dungan
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
Jennifer_DunganCommunity Advisor and Adobe Champion
Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
September 23, 2024

So Marketing Channels and Campaigns are slightly different... Campaign only looks at your query strings, whereas Marketing Channel can look at many different dimensions (including Campaign, or just looking at the query strings directly - which I would recommend doing).

 

By default, Marketing Channels have a 30 Day Attribution, and Campaign has a 1 Week Attribution. These can both be changed to suite your needs... we set our Marketing Channels to 1 Week (7 Days), and left the Campaign as default... but even with that, we read our query strings directly in our marketing channel rules, just to be safe.

 

For your first question:

If you set your Campaign to HIT expiry, this would impact every hit... honestly, even if I didn't want 1 week/7 day attribution, I wouldn't go lower than Visit, otherwise it's not doing you much good... unless you are only trying to see your "direct entries" by campaign... but since that can be done by pairing your Campaign (Tracking Code) with the Tracking Code Instance metric, I would want to maintain the value to at least pair with any conversions that occur (either at the visit or 7 day attribution)... for the record, I set up a custom external campaign dimension for Visit... so I have the best of both worlds.... 

 

For your second question:

Without seeing all your rules, and how they might interact with one another this would be hard to help with. I would be happy to try and do a troubleshooting session with you some time if you want... 

 

Also, keep in mind, depending on your attribution, if you have been changing a lot of rules, incorrect channels that were determined before some of your changes will stay incorrect until the expiry is hit... when you have issues, and you make big changes, sometimes it's better to force a "reset" to start fresh with the updated rules.

A
azmeister3000Author
Level 2
September 23, 2024

Thanks! I've attached screenshots of them here. So they were setup before me and we haven't touched them much until that change 

 

In terms of query string parameter and campaign - should campaign theoretically be populated every time the query string parameter is present in the page url?

 

Another thing about query string parameter being used in the processing rules, there are obviously hits where the parameter is not present - usually every URL after the entry page. Once set after the initial hit in a visit, would there only be a new marketing channel instance if there was something else in the data triggering it?

 

We'll look into the campaign expiry

 

 

 

     

A
azmeister3000Author
Level 2
September 27, 2024

Hmm and you are sure that the value is being lost during the same visit? 


Yes, definitely. The campaign field goes blank quite early on in the visit. there doesn't seem to be a specific hit which causes it.

 

I'm wondering if the tracking code implementation is off?

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