Marketing Channel - combing three to one

[nbendov]

I am afraid to loss historic data. I currently have 3 marketing channels: Paid Search, Display, Paid Social Networks (see image) with rules attached to them which I need to combine them to one new Marketing Channel called Paid Media. How will be the best way to go about it? I was thinking about renaming Paid Search to Paid Media, leaving the other two channels but changing their rules to (see image where I was thinking of updating): Set the channel’s value to “Query String Parameter = Paid Media” Any thoughts?

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Depending on your Marketing Channel expiry (could be 30 days, could be 7 days, could be 6 months...), you will have a period where the existing tracking will still be there for users already sorted... (for instance, if a user is funneled into Paid Search, then comes back direct, the paid search will take precedence until your expiry period has elapsed - well assuming that you have the default setting on Direct to not override the last touch channel.. )

If it were me, I would leave the three rules as separate rules, so that I could still set the "Channel Value" per rule.. either using your "Display" param, or maybe your UTM Medium, etc.... (I really wish there were more controls around setting the channel value)

By creating a new Channel, you can let the other channels just sort of gradually fade (no new data should be added to them, but they will be there for Historical purposes).

You can create a new channel by going into Marketing Channel Manager and adding a new Channel here ("Paid Media").. then in the processing rules, change the three rules to Identify the Channel as "Paid Media", If you want, you can also change around the processing order to make sure that all paid media is processed around the same time in the execution. After making these changes, you will see a warning symbol next to the three channels that no longer have rules, but this is expected... since you explicitly removed the rules in favour of a new Channel; and if you ever want or need to go back to having them split up, the channels are there and waiting for you... and you will have the separate rules that can be set back as well without a lot of re-work.

Anyway, just my two cents... 

Update: Oh, I forgot to address your last question...

Right now, "Set the Channel's value to Query String Parameter Display" mean that this is looking for a query string called "Display" as in:

domain.com/page?domain=something

"Something" will be the value that is set....

It looks like your UTM Medium is being set with a value of "display" since that is what your rule is looking for, or for UTM Medium being set to "cpc" for instance in other rules:

domain.com/page?utm_medium=display

domain.com/page?utm_medium=cpc

domain.com/page?utm_medium=ppc

If you use:

"Set the Channel's value to Query String Parameter utm_medium"

This will get the values of "display" or "cpc" or "ppc" etc... I think this is really what you are looking for....

Also, I noticed (by squinting, the image was rather large and kind of blurry when I zoomed in - likely how Experience League handled the image), it looks like you may be using:

"Set the Channel's value to Search Engine + Search Keyword(s)"

Adobe hasn't been able to get keywords reliably since search engines went to SSL certificates... so this will result in a lot of results that look like:

n:Google:::empty::

You might as well change these to something better.. you may just want to use "Search Engine", or your UTM Medium, etc....

[nbendov]

Great. Thank you for all the help!

[nbendov]

I have followed your instructions. I have created a new marketing channel "Paid Media" and assigned the rules to that channel. However, the old marketing channels (Paid Search, Display and Paid Social) and are still showing up in reports together with Paid Media (see image). 

Do I need to disable the old marketing channels?

 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You can disable the old ones, but those values will Still show up in your data for historical purposes... 

Also, you need to remember that your Marketing Channels have an expiry time... that might be 30 days, it might be 7 days, it might be 6 months... I don't know what you have configured... but you will continue to see those old values until you are past that retention time.

Marketing Channels are calculated as the data comes in, they don't change the values in the past like classification rules.

[nbendov]

Where can I find the Marketing Channels expiry time?

Just to clarify...

The number I am seeing is it (provided that the rules set up correctly)?

Paid Media = Paid Search + Display + Paid Social

I am trying to understand if I can ignore Paid Search, Display, Paid Social that are showing in reports?

Thanks

N

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You can find the expiry under:

Admin > Report Suites > (Select Report Suite)

Edit Settings > Marketing Channels > Marketing Channel Expiration

We currently have ours set to 7 days:

We just made major changes a few weeks ago, including changing this from 30 days to 7 days... so I am waiting until next month to review the "clean" data with the Marketing Team.

[nbendov]

I have it setup to 30 days.

I am more concerned about Paid Media, Paid Search, Display, and Paid Social all still showing up. I think that my users are going to be confused, especially, when Paid Media numbers are not equal to Paid Search + Display + Paid Social.

Any thoughts how to deal with that?