Explore how Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) enhances Marketing Channels with flexible, customizable setups and instant changes. This article covers key steps like using templates, applying a waterfall approach, and refining rules for optimal performance.

Marketing Channels in Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) function differently than in Adobe Analytics, offering greater flexibility and instant, retroactive changes. Instead of relying on a processing rules setup like in Adobe Analytics, you define Marketing Channels in CJA using Derived Fields, allowing custom attributions, greater flexibility, and improved validation of your Marketing Channel classifications.

Building your Marketing Channels in CJA

To set up Marketing Channels in CJA:

• Use a Derived Field: CJA provides a Marketing Channels template to help you get started. You can define up to 200 conditions to categorize your traffic sources. Either keep the suggested options or add/remove conditions to meet your specific needs. This template is available to all CJA customers, including those using the CJA Foundation SKU.

• A waterfall approach: The rules process sequentially, meaning if a hit doesn’t match the first condition, it moves to the next until a match is found (the same way the processing rules worked in Adobe Analytics). Once a hit is categorized in a channel, that’s it. It doesn’t get moved to another channel later or get tracked in more than one. Understanding this helps with troubleshooting when you see items reporting in the wrong channels. You want to make sure that your higher priority channels are at the top and the more general “catch-all” channels, like direct or internal, are at the very bottom
• Review and revise: Unlike Adobe Analytics, you can adjust the rules at any time, either by adding/removing conditions or changing their order, and changes take effect immediately and retroactively. If something isn’t working, you can undo or refine the setup, avoiding that awkward period when you have to tell users, 'Don’t look at Marketing Channels prior to X date, because that was before we fixed the channel allocation rules.'

Derived fields are easier than you might think. Be sure to check out Adobe’s documentation on this amazing feature.

Key considerations for setup

• Look for overlapping traffic sources: Some traffic may fit into multiple categories. For example, if someone shares a link on Facebook that includes an email campaign tracking code, it could be categorized as Organic Social instead of Email, depending on your rule order.
• • To ensure that Organic Social gets credit, place that rule before the Email rule.
  • Or, add an exclusion: if the session contains an email tracking code and is not referred by a social domain, classify it as Email. No Referrer Type dimension:  Unlike Adobe Analytics, CJA does not natively include a Referrer Type dimension, which categorizes traffic as Typed/Bookmarked, Social, Search, Email, etc., regardless of campaign parameters. But you won’t miss it!
  • Instead of a generic Referrer Type, your Marketing Channel Derived Field can function in the same way—but with far greater flexibility.
  • You can make it as broad or as specific as your organization needs, ensuring that your channels align with business goals.
  • If you still want that Referrer Type dimension, just create another derived field that categorizes traffic solely by referring domain.

• Limit access until finalized: Keep the Marketing Channel dimension hidden from non-admin users until validation is complete.
• • This allows for full testing to ensure that your rules provide the results you want, before users have access to them. Ensure full coverage: All traffic should fall into one of the defined channels. Regular validation ensures data integrity.
• • Keep validating by breaking the channel down by either Campaign Tracking Code or Referrer URL (or both) until each category only contains what you’d expect to see.
  • In the end, there should be nothing showing under “No Value”. No "First Page of Visit" or “Override Last Touch Channel” options:  Instead, use custom attribution on your metrics or use different persistence in your component settings.
• • Using Session Starts as a metric helps reduce sessions falsely attributed to Internal channels, since many internal referrers are just users navigating your site—normal behavior that shouldn't count as a referral each time.
  • Persistence of “Original” on your Marketing Channel dimension also ensures that you aren’t counting each page a user views on the site as a new referring URL.
  • Some recommend using “No Value” to represent all direct and internal/session refresh traffic, but I prefer to create channels for each of these that control what gets included. You can also remove these rows to cut down on noise from these channels. Avoid using the Adobe Analytics Connector: Carrying over Adobe Analytics Marketing Channels removes flexibility and prevents modification within CJA. If you do have a need for complete parity with Adobe Analytics Marketing Channel data, be sure to read this article for additional information on setting up your channels in CJA.

Enhancing analysis with Attribution & Details

• First Touch, Last Touch, or Custom Attribution: Users can build Custom Attribution models directly in reports, or you can create these and add them to your left rail for reuse. You can also create copies of your Marketing Channel dimension with different persistence settings in the Data View Settings.

• 1:1 relationship with Landing Pages: A non-persisting Marketing Channel Dimension makes troubleshooting easier and allows for hit-based counting of how often each channel drives entry.
• Marketing Channel Detail field: Once your channels are set up, create a Marketing Channel Detail derived field using a "Case When" function that assigns either campaign tracking codes or referrer URL, depending on the channel type. Example:

Just remember that Marketing Channels are no longer a separate set of dimensions and metrics using a different set of processing rules. By following this approach, you gain complete control over Marketing Channels in CJA, with instant flexibility, easier validation and fully customizable attribution—something that wasn’t quite so easy with Adobe Analytics.