Tracking Email Opens from Non-Adobe Platforms in RTCDP

[yesraptors12]

Hi RTCDP Community,

I am exploring the capabilities of RTCDP in relation to tracking email engagement metrics, specifically "opens," when the emails are dispatched through a third-party marketing automation platform that is not part of the Adobe suite.

Would it be feasible to implement a tracking pixel or a JavaScript snippet within the HTML of an email to facilitate this? Additionally, would this approach be analogous to employing a data layer strategy as used in web tracking scenarios?

Any insights or guidance on how to achieve this within the RTCDP environment would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your assistance!

Best regards,
Rap

[narendragandhi]

Hi @yesraptors12 

Have you explored the option of collecting email engagement metrics in the marketing automation platform, and then that can be exported and ingested into AEP for further usage.

Thanks

Narendra

[yesraptors12]

Hi @narendragandhi,

Thanks for replying me.

I'm relatively new to RTCDP, and please forgive me if I have anything misconcepted.

Long story short, I would need some guidance on integrating third-party marketing automation platforms, specifically Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), for tracking email interactions.

I'm aware that Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) offers a native connector for SFMC, as detailed here: [Salesforce Marketing Cloud Source Overview](https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-platform/sources/connectors/marketing-automation/...).

My primary concern is understanding the extent of data that the native connector can send to RTCDP. Specifically, once the SFMC connector is linked to RTCDP, will it automatically track and capture individual email opens and clicks per "profile" without requiring us to embed a data collection pixel within the email HTML?

In essence, I'm looking for a way to correlate email engagement data (opens and clicks) with respective customer profiles in RTCDP seamlessly. If there are any best practices or additional steps needed to achieve this level of integration, I would be grateful for your insights.

Cheers,
Rap

[narendragandhi · Accepted solution]

No problem and thanks for sharing the details on the tech stack.

Here is the documentation for similar implementation using Adobe Campaign. At a high level, you are only sharing the audience from RTCDP to your destination i.e. SFMC and then the engagement metrics collected by SFMC would have to be ingested back into RTCDP.

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/campaign-standard/using/integrating-with-adobe-cloud/adobe-e...

Please let me know for any questions.

Thanks

Narendra

[kautuk_sahni]

@yesraptors12 Did you find the suggestions from users helpful? Please let us know if more information is required. Otherwise, please mark the answer as correct for posterity. If you have found out solution yourself, please share it with the community.

[AllenTs2]

Hi @narendragandhi and @kautuk_sahni,

Thank you for the detailed explanation provided earlier.

Could I kindly ask you to verify my understanding of the integration process between Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) and Real-Time Customer Data Platform (RTCDP)? Specifically, if we launch an email campaign to 1,000 recipients through SFMC and have the RTCDP connectors configured within SFMC, will profiles for these 1,000 recipients be automatically created in RTCDP? Furthermore, will this setup enable us to monitor email opens and link clicks for these 1000 users?

Alternatively, is it a prerequisite to have these 1,000 users pre-configured in RTCDP before any tracking can occur?

Your confirmation on the above would help ensure our approach is accurate and aligned with the system's capabilities.

Thanks,

Rap

[RyanMoravick]

Hey there,

Not sure if you found a solution to this yet, but I have had success using the Automation Studio in SFMC to create an automation job that queries email tracking data, extracts the data from a data extension, converts it to a csv, and transfers the file to AEP using the SFTP source connector. 

You'll need to create an engagement activity schema first and map the source fields from SFMC to the schema fields in AEP. Once the ingestion runs, you'll be able to see engagement activity data as an event on the customer profile. Happy to elaborate more if it is helpful!

[AllenTs2]

Thanks @RyanMoravick, for the workflow suggestion—it's been quite insightful. We're planning to put it into practice on our side.

We were contemplating whether the ingestion process could be automated using SFMC connectors alone, but it appears that may not be possible.

[RyanMoravick]

For tracking data from SFMC, you'll have to use the SFTP source connector in RTCDP. The reason for this is that the SFMC source connector is built upon the SFMC REST API, and the tracking data object is only supported via SOAP API, which RTCDP currently does not support.