Managing campaigns

To manage your website’s marketing campaigns, open the Campaigns application and select the Campaigns tab.

To create new campaigns:

1. Click New campaign.

2. Fill in the following properties:

   • Display name - the name of the campaign displayed in the administration interface (in campaign lists and reports).
   • Code name - serves as a unique identifier for the campaign. It is also stored as the value of the Campaign browser cookie used to identify visitors who came to the website through the given campaign.
   • Description - can be used to enter a text description for the campaign in order to give information about its purpose, goals, etc.
   • Open from/to - sets the time interval during which the campaign is active. Use the Calendar button () to select an exact date and time.
   • Enabled - you can use this property to manually start or stop tracking of the campaign. The system does not log visitor statistics and actions for disabled campaigns.

3. Click Save.

The General tab of the campaign’s editing interface open.

You can modify the fields listed above, as well as the advanced campaign settings.

• The Impressions and Total cost values can be used to help evaluate the campaign and calculate its goals (see Evaluating campaigns).

• The Condition field allows you to specify a macro condition that must be fulfilled in order for visitors to be included in the campaign. Click Edit to build conditions using text-based macro rules.

  Campaign condition example

  Copy

  
  
  
    Cookies.Campaign != "banner1"
  
    

  This sample condition checks the value of the Campaign cookie and prevents the campaign from being assigned to visitors who are already being tracked by a different campaign named banner1.

  Refer to the Macro expressions chapter for details about available macro options and syntax.

On the Conversions tab, you can configure which conversions the campaign tracks. There are two possible options:

• All conversions will be tracked for the campaign - all conversion hits logged on the entire website are included in the campaign’s statistics.
• Only the selected conversions will be tracked for the campaign - allows you to limit which conversions the campaign tracks. You can assign specific conversions to the campaign by clicking Add conversions and choosing from the list in the displayed dialog.

In both cases, the system only logs campaign conversions for visitors who arrive on the website as a result of the given campaign.

Configuring campaign tracking

You can use three different approaches to identify visitors who access the website through a marketing campaign:

• URL parameters
• Document-specific campaigns
• Document aliases for campaigns

URL parameters

Utilize a URL query string parameter to indicate that the traffic source is a campaign.

1. Open the Settings application.

2. Select the On‑line marketing -> Web analytics category.

3. Enter the name of the URL parameter into the website’s Campaign tracking URL parameter setting.

4. Click Save.

5. Ensure that all link URLs used in the campaign’s marketing materials contain the parameter, with the name of the appropriate campaign as the value. For example:

   • http://www.mywebsite.com/Home.aspx?campaign=banner1

   • http://www.mywebsite.com/News.aspx?campaign=newsletterJune

This type of campaign tracking is not limited to a specific document and works for all pages on the website.

Document-specific campaigns

You can configure documents to behave as campaign landing pages. When visitors view such a page, the system automatically assigns the specified campaign. A visit is logged for the campaign every time the document is requested.

To create a campaign landing page:

1. Open the Pages application.

2. Select the document in the content tree.

3. Switch to the Analytics -> Settings tab.

4. Type the name of your campaign into the Track campaign field.

   • Click Select to choose from a list of existing campaign objects available for the website.
   • You can use Edit and New to manage campaigns directly from the dialog.

5. Click Save.

6. Direct all campaign links to the URL of the landing page.

The system assigns the campaign to all users who view the page. Repeated page views by the same user are logged as separate campaign visits.

Document aliases for campaigns

You can define campaign tracking for a page’s specific document alias. This approach is useful if you need the campaign to link visitors to an easily accessible page, but want to avoid using a query string parameter.

1. Open the Pages application.
2. Select the document in the content tree.
3. Go to Properties -> URLs.
4. Click Add new alias.
5. Configure the alias settings:
   • Select Standard URL or wildcard.
   • Enter a suitable path into the Path or pattern field.
   • Specify the name of the campaign in the Track campaign property.
     
6. Click Save.
7. Use the URL of the alias in the campaign’s links, for example: http://www.mywebsite.com/Campaigns/Home.aspx

The system assigns the campaign to visitors who access the page through the exact document alias.

Enabling automatic campaign creation

When a visitor comes to the website through an undefined campaign (typically specified via a tracking URL parameter), the system ignores the campaign by default.

Administrators with access to the application’s web.config file can change this behavior by adding the following key to the /configuration/appSettings section:

 <add key="CMSEnableAutomaticCampaignCreate" value="true" />

This ensures that unknown campaigns are automatically added to the list of campaigns for the given website. Campaigns created this way are enabled and have an unlimited time interval by default.