Marketing Channel Processing rule best practice QSP and Tracking Code

[JSP2]

I was looking through some previous posts on this topic and see that it is recommended to generally use QSP instead of Tracking Code in a processing rule.

I have been setting up my processing rules with both conditions as shown below.

Is this redundant or could this result in missed attribution?  For expample, if someone comes to the site today with no Tracking Code but a few days ago, they did have a Tracking Code....would we be missing out on the attribution to the Email channel by not leveraging the persistence of the Tracking Code?  

[bjoern__koth]

Hi @JSP2 

in my opinion, it should not make a difference whether you are looking at a QSP or the campaign / tracking code value, since both are present at the time of processing rule evaluation.

So, assuming that your "cid" query string parameter ends up in the campaign field of your tracking code, you could as well only check the QSP or the Tracking Code.

(side note: I don't think you would even have to check whether cid is set, but it's best practice to double check)

[Jennifer_Dungan]

My biggest concern with using "Tracking Code" is the different Attribution models (between Tracking Code and Marketing Channel), as well as the fact that Tracking Code doesn't take all the complexities of Marketing Channel into account...

For instance:

Visit 1:

• Paid Search (campaign = x)
  • Tracking Code = x
  • Marketing Channel = paid search
  • Marketing Channel = x

Visit 2 (1 day later)

• Organic Social (no campaign)
  • Tracking Code is still "x" since it's within the 1 week attribution of Tracking Code

In Visit 2, is the Marketing Channel set to "Organic Social" since that is the referrer, or is it set to "Paid Search" since the Tracking Code is still set?

I guess this depends on the order of your rules, but since "paid" with explicit campaign codes are generally processed first, I would guess that your Marketing Channel stays "Paid Search" and does not pick up your "Organic Social".

It is not explicitly stated that the Marketing Channel is looking at the "instance" of Tracking Code... so I avoid setting my rules by Tracking Code to ensure that I never get a mis-attributed Marketing Channel....

[JSP2]

Thank you for your response, Jennifer.

In my case, where I have both conditions currently in the processing rule, would I lose the attribution to the Email channel in Visit 2 of your example because I am requiring cid QSP to be present?

Your recommendation is to just use qsp contains "value" and not use Tracking code at all? 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Hi,

In your case, since you have an "AND" logic (i.e. "If ALL of the following are true") you shouldn't be impacted by the Tracking Code attribution... at least in the rule you are showing.... IF you have rules using "ANY", or only looks at Tracking Code then you might have issues.

However, since Tracking Code is based on your cid qsp (but has 1retention), I don't see a need to check both here... just checking the actual qsp is enough; and this ensures you are only looking at the instances of qsp being set and not the 1 week (or custom retention) of your Tracking Code.

[JSP2]

Thank you so much!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You are very welcome, glad to help.