Understanding user engagement with your website or app is vital for optimizing campaigns and maximizing ROI. Adobe Analytics helps track and attribute user acquisition to specific marketing channels. This guide explains how to configure these channels and leverage attribution effectively.
What
In the dynamic world of digital marketing, understanding how users discover and engage with your website or mobile app is crucial for optimizing campaigns and maximizing ROI. One of the key tools for this analysis is Adobe Analytics, which allows organizations to track and attribute user acquisition to specific marketing channels.
Here's a comprehensive guide to configuring marketing channels in Adobe Analytics and harnessing the power of attribution.
Why
Introduction to Marketing Channels
Marketing channels represent the various methods through which users reach your digital properties. They can range from paid campaigns like paid search and paid social to organic sources such as organic social, referral traffic, or direct mail campaigns. Each channel plays a unique role in driving traffic and conversions.
Configuring marketing channels in Adobe Analytics empowers organizations to gain deeper insights into user behaviour, optimize marketing strategies, and allocate budgets effectively. By accurately attributing conversions to specific channels, marketers can make data-driven decisions to enhance campaign performance and drive business growth in the digital landscape.
How
Configuring Marketing Channels in Adobe Analytics
Identify Relevant Marketing Channels
Begin by identifying the marketing channels that are significant for your organization's digital presence. This includes both internal (organization-specific) and external sources like social media platforms, search engines, and referral sites.
Create Campaign tracking Code Generator Tool
Develop a Campaign tracking Code generator tool that aligns with your organization's URL structure needs. This tool helps in generating campaign URLs with embedded tracking parameters. A template can be downloaded here.
Key Fields to Capture and Analyze
- Campaign Type: Distinguish between internal and external campaigns specific to your organization.
- Campaign Medium: Categorize traffic sources into meaningful groups (e.g., paid search, social, referral).
- Campaign Source: Identify the exact origin of traffic (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google).
- Campaign Name: Assign unique identifiers to campaigns for clear distinction and analysis.
- Campaign Term: For paid search campaigns, capture keywords that drive traffic.
- Campaign Content: Capture additional details about campaign content for deeper analysis.
Capture Campaign Codes
Utilize a tag management solution such as Adobe Launch (soon to be rebranded as Experience Platform Tags) to capture campaign codes embedded in URLs. Configure Adobe Launch to capture specific query parameters such as “cid” for external campaigns or “intcid” for internal campaigns in different eVars as required. Ensure same value is not counted multiple times during page reloads using Adobe plugins like getValOnce.
Configure Tracking Code and eVars
Configure campaign code variable (eVar0) and relevant eVars per report suite with expiration & allocation set to length of conversion cycle (organization specific). By default, s.campaign variable populate dimension campaign code (eVar0) which can be located by searching for “Tracking Code” in the workspace components.
Classify Tracking Code
Utilize Classification rule builder to classify tracking code or eVar in fields like Campaign Type (internal or external), Campaign Medium (traffic source grouping), Campaign Source (specific source of traffic), Campaign Name (unique campaign identifier), and Campaign Term (keywords for paid search campaigns).
Configure Marketing Channel Processing Rules
Configuring Marketing Channels per report suite is two-step process. First step being naming the identified marketing channels (up to 25 distinct channels allowed) and second being configuring Marketing Channel Processing Rules to accurately classify incoming traffic into specific marketing channels. Channels rules are processed in the specified order, hence it is important to keep paid channels above organic channels.
Adobe Analytics Workspace Report
Create reports based on the tracking code to measure campaign effectiveness in driving conversions, analyse engagement metrics such as bounce rate of campaign landing pages, identify opportunities for campaign optimization for higher ROI. A workspace template can also be created and saved in Analytics workspace which can be used by marketers to analyse different campaigns and campaign categories.
Leveraging Attribution Models
While Adobe Analytics’ Marketing Channel functionality allows for the tracking and analysis of different marketing channels’ influence on key metrics, the Attribution Model functionality applies various models to these channels to determine the most effective touchpoints and optimize marketing spend.
Adobe Analytics allows for detailed attribution modelling, where credit for conversions is assigned to specific marketing touchpoints. Common attribution models include First Touch (crediting the first interaction) and Last Touch (crediting the last interaction). This helps marketers understand which channels are most influential at different stages of the customer journey.
Adobe provides several tools to achieve in-depth analysis into various attribution models of success metrics such as -
- Utilize the Attribution panel in Analytics workspace with success metric like Orders and dimension Marketing Channel
- Apply non-default attribution model from Column Settings for each success metric
- Use Compare Attribution Models to analyze impact of different attribution models across lookback periods (up to 90 days)
- Implement attribution in Calculated Metrics to measure the impact on conversion, such as differences between last touch orders and first touch orders
Leveraging Marketing Channels and Attribution Models together is crucial because it provides a comprehensive view of the customer journey, highlighting which channels are most influential in driving conversions. By understanding the impact of each touchpoint, marketers can allocate resources more effectively, tailoring strategies to engage customers at the right time and place, ultimately optimizing the return on investment for marketing efforts.
Hope this guide will be useful for you to kickstart your Marketing Channels journey!
Additional Resources
- To dive deeper into marketing channels and attribution, check out Isha's Skill Exchange session where she guides you through using the campaign tracking code template.