How does Campaign tracking work in the Data Insertion API

[AllaOmelchenko]

In the normal client-side implementation we tag an URL outside our app with the campaign query parameter,e .g. cid. When user clicks on this URL Adobe library via Campaign plugin captures the value and populates the Tracking Code report. 

In case of server-side tracking when user clicks on the URL with the query string parameter what is mechanism that populates <campaign> /<campaign> parameter in the XML tag. 

[igupta]

Hey @AllaOmelchenko ,

Are you looking to understand referrers in data through Data Insertion API? You can add a column in your import file dedicated to campaign code, referrer URL etc. and that can be used to look at the traffic channels. Is this what you are trying to achieve?

Best,

Isha

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Whether you are using client-side or server-side implementation, you should be able to directly set your Campaign variables.... 

We use UTMs and not CIDs, so even on our client-side implementation, this doesn't happen automatically. I specifically collect the data into the format I want, then set the s.campaign value directly.... in the server-side, you should be able to do the same.

[AllaOmelchenko]

Technically I was asking about something different. I wanted to know if I send a campaign query string parameter in the destination URL and I have Data Insertion API collecting data in the XML format if there any other configuration actions on the Adobe side to populate <campaign> dimension in the XML I am not aware of. 

After my investigation I got confirmation that there is none and this is just dev work to pass the value from the query string parameter to the <campaign>.

This is what my question was about. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Query Strings in your URL are processed by the AppMeasurement.js or potentially by the code used by WebSDK....  as far as I am aware, if you are using the Data Insertion only the fields you explicitly set will populate with data.... nothing will "automatically" populate. Now, you might be using Processing Rules or Vista rules to make adjustments, but I know that processing rules are very simple, you can't extract values... so that isn't a viable option... and Vista rules need to be set up by Adobe Engineering which would be an additional charge for the time and effort of the engineer... so also not a great option.....

As I said, if you want your campaign variable to be populated, you will need to send it directly into that field using the Insertion API

[AllaOmelchenko]

There is no AppMeasurment.js or WebSDK when you use server-side tracking. 

When I am using Data Insertion API dev work outside of Adobe is required to populate the value from the query string parameter into <campaign> dimension in the XML request. 

I am very clear on this now. 

We do not need Vista rule for this at all. Processing rules come into play later and this is not what I was asking about. 

Data Insertion API does not populate on its own. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

That was my point... there IS no code to process your campaign... so unless you are setting the values specifically in your API call, they are not going to be available to you.

If you want your campaigns to be populated, you need to explicitly set that with the API... simply having it as part of the URL is not enough.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I hope this helped. Things like the Data Insertion API need to be much more explicit, you can't rely on a lot of the time saving "cheats" that you normally can in a standard implementation.

[AllaOmelchenko]

I've already resolved it a while ago. No worries. Thanks for your efforts.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I am sorry if I confused you... I was merely pointing out that Vista Rules might be used to set the campaign (from the passed URL) without manually setting the campaign in your insertion record.. but that Processing Rules would be ineffective at such a task since there is no "extraction" logic available there.

Otherwise, my original response that the campaign field needed to be set directly is the answer (as in passing in the URL is not enough).

You didn't indicate that the issue was resolved until now, so I was continuing to try and support you with potential options, as well as things to avoid (Processing Rules) as they wouldn't give you what you needed.

I am glad your issue is resolved.