Configure a Keitai Campaign: Responses

To configure Link Tracking in your Campaign:

1. If your Campaign contains an External Content Block, and if that External Content Block contains links, the platform enables tracking of those links by default. Optionally you can change this default behavior. Click Do Not Track Links. Please note that this option is displayed only if your Campaign contains an External Content Block with links.  

2. Select Track All Links to enable link tracking. Or, depending on the Campaign channel, you may have the option to Track Some Links. If you select this option, you'll need to further select which format versions you want to track (HTML, Plain Text, etc.).

3. If you have multiple domains set up for your account, select a domain from the Link Tracking Domain drop-down list.

4. Select Shorten Links to use a URL Shortener to convert a URL into a condensed format. This option is mainly intended for the SMS Text channel, which has very strict character limits.

5. In tracked links, the Proxy ID parameter (pi) is ON by default and is essential to Marigold’s Machine Learning models, including STO. The option Remove Proxy ID Tracking suppresses this pi parameter and stops the campaign from contributing to all ML models and calculations. We recommend not activating this option unless absolutely necessary. This option is only for the very small amount of marketers who had trouble accommodating this parameter in their redirects.

6. Optionally, in the Append Codes field, enter the Key Value Pair for the Append Code (or optionally, multiple Append Codes). It's not necessary to enter the query string delimiter (?); the platform will add that automatically for you. If entering multiple Append Codes, be sure separate each Key Value Pair with an ampersand (&).

   Note: Append Codes are an optional feature used for web tracking purposes through your own tracking system, or through third-party vendors like Omniture and Google Analytics. The code (or codes) entered in this field will be appended to each tracked link in the campaign.

7. The Links Found in Content section lists all of the links that are found within the message content, including any links used within Looping Blocks.

8. The individual links will be tracked in reports generated by the platform. Cheetah Digital's best practice is to provide "friendly" names for the links to make these reports easier to read. For example, instead of viewing a URL like "http://www.mycompany.com/homepage.aspx," a name of “Home Page” can be assigned.

   In addition to improving report readability, the use of friendly names allows you to keep links distinct from each other, even if they go to the same destination URL. For example, you might have two links to your company's home page within your message content -- one within the header and one within the footer. By giving these two links different friendly names ("Home Header" and "Home Footer" for example), you can track these two links separately.

   The system provides several different ways to assign a friendly name for a link:

   • Define the link and the friendly name in the Link Library   

   • Define the friendly name within the Content Editor when you build the message, using one of the following methods:

   • Within HTML content, add a name attribute (data-link-name) to the anchor tag. For example:

     <a data-link-name="Cheetah Digital home" href="http://www.cheetahdigital.com">Cheetah Digital Home Page</a> 

   • Within either HTML or Text content, use a new URL merge tag to specify the friendly name. For example:

     {@Cheetah Digital home|http://www.cheetahdigital.com@}

     Note: The link name parameter can be used only in HTML or Text format versions. Also, links contained within Looping Blocks will not support the link name parameter.

   • If the friendly name has not previously been defined through the Link Library, or within the Content Editor, then the system will use a default name, such as "Link 01" followed by the URL. You can manually override this default name, and enter a new friendly name in the "Links Found in Content" list. When you launch the Campaign, the system will automatically add this link / friendly name to the Link Library.

     Note: In order for the platform to recognize the link friendly name, the link name and URL (or href tag) must be located in the same content source. For example, if you have links contained within Content Blocks used within a Campaign, the Content Block would need to contain both the link name parameter and the URL or href tag.

9. Optionally, to assign a Tag, click the Tag field next to a link. The system displays a menu of every Tag value used within the current system. You can pick one or more of these tags, or type in a new tag and press Enter. To remove a tag, click the X icon next to the tag value.

   Tags are an organizational tool that can be used to classify links into custom groups for reporting and tracking purposes. Campaign reports (see Campaign Report: Link Click Activity) will show click responses rolled up by Tag value, allowing you to analyze the combined performance of a group of links. For example, you could assign all of the links in your navigation menu with the Tag navigation. This Tag could then be used to view click activity for all links with the navigation Tag. Also, Tags can be used as Filter criteria when building an Audience for a future Campaign, so you could select all subscribers who clicked on a navigation link, for example. Link tags are a Campaign-level setting; these tags can't be defined on the Link Library screen, but instead only on the Campaign screen.

10. Click Refresh List to refresh the tracking for links added or updated in the message.

11. Optionally, to test that the URLs in your links are all valid, click Validate Links in the Tool Ribbon. The system pings each URL to see if it gets a response within an optimal amount of time. The results of this test are displayed within the Valid? column -- either Valid or Unable to Verify. If you get the Unable to Verify message, check that the text of your URL is correct, and that the target link will be working at the time of the Campaign delivery. Please note that the Validate Links feature is not available for every channel.

12. The Globally Excluded Links section lists all of the links found in the message content that have been explicitly set to Do not track through the Link Library.