Learning Objectives:

You will be able to:

• Explain what campaign tracking is
• Differentiate between the campaign tracking journeys: Brand Campaign Tracking and Retailer Campaign Tracking
• Set up all the different types of campaign tracking.

In the modern retail and ecommerce environment, data is king. Data in and of itself doesn't
determine whether a brand or retailer will succeed or not, but both smart brands and retailers
separately or together can use data to gain actionable insights to achieve strategic goals.
PriceSpider helps by gathering data and delivering actionable insights.

Insights 360 Portal is a one-stop shop to understand and optimize the customer journey. 

 

Campaign Tracking

 

Attributing revenue to marketing influence is one of marketers’ biggest challenges.​ Campaign Tracking allows you to track traffic driven from the various campaigns your brand creates. Gain insight into your consumer's shopping habits and utilize PriceSpider’s Insights 360 Portal to capture data such as sales, click-throughs, and receipts your campaigns have generated. 

 

With Campaign Tracking, you can drive efficiency into your brand marketing and become a performance brand marketer. Segment your marketing campaigns by source, medium, campaign, and any other campaign parameters. With the different consumer journeys, PriceSpider enables last-click/last-touch attribution:​

 

1. Brand Campaign Tracking​ for campaigns driven to Brand PDP or Landing Page
1. Brand Campaign Tracking Setup Through Insights 360 Portal
2. Retailer Campaign Tracking for campaigns driven to Retailer PDP or Add to Cart (Retailer)

 

Introduction to Campaign Parameters and IDs

Campaign parameters and IDs are text snippets that you insert into your URL to track where your visitors and buyers are coming from. That is, they allow you to understand the behavior of your audience and see which advertising strategies are attracting the most visits and purchases for your product. Campaign parameters are ways to segment your traffic, such as the source or medium. Campaign IDs are values to those segments, such as Facebook or email.

 

Tracking Different Consumer Journeys

In this section, the various consumer journeys will be discussed, including setup and how to view your campaign data via PriceSpider’s Insights 360 portal. 

 

Brand Campaign Tracking

Brands can send their marketing/advertising (Social Media - Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc., digital banner ads, email campaigns, content) traffic to a product detail page (PDP) or landing page (LP) with the Where to Buy (WTB). From the WTB Tech, the consumer can select a retailer’s page and purchase the products from there. Brand Campaign Tracking reports on consumer behavior and engagement once customers visit the PDP or Landing Page with the Where to Buy (WTB) Technology and reports on behavior/purchases. 

 

Setup

Set up for Brand Campaign Tracking requires three main steps:

I. PriceSpider Tracking Script is copied from PriceSpider’s Insights 360 Portal.

II. The script is implemented into the header of each page on the Brand.com website in order to collect consumer data. 

III. The parameters that are being tracked are registered in PriceSpider’s Insights 360 Portal. 

 

I. Copy the Tracking Script From Insights 360

In order to track and collect your data from your campaigns, you need to implement a Campaign Tracking Script into the header of each page on the Brand.com website.

 

Step 1: Log into Insights 360

Step 2:  From the Insights 360 Dashboard, click the gear icon in the upper right corner.

Step 3: Select “Campaign Tracking Setup”

 

 

Step 4: Select “Copy tag” at the top of the Campaign Tracking Setup window

 

II. Implement the Tracking script from Insights 360 to Campaign Destinations

 

Step 1: Go to your brand site and add the copied script to every page on your site. 

It is important to add the script to every site so PriceSpider can continue to track the consumer after they land on a page from the campaign and as they move around to different sites within your Brand.com

 

Best Practices: To ensure Campaign Tracking works properly, we recommend adding the script to the base/master template page for the site, ideally in your global header. The script reference is static and only needs to be integrated once. It will not change, unless there is a specific need identified by PriceSpider.

 

Quick Tip: 

Can I use Google Tag Manager? 

• YES!

 

III. Register the Campaign Tracking Parameters

Step 1: Go back to the Campaign Tracking window from Campaign Tracking Setup where the script was copied within the Insights 360 Portal to begin registering the campaign parameters.

 

 

 

Step 2: Register your campaign parameters on the left side of the window - under “Campaign Parameter”. There is no limit to how many parameters can be entered. 

 

Examples of what to add include: utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. Please see Appendix I for more information on the five recommended parameters in line with Google. 

 

Note: You can use multiple parameters that are registered. For example, if utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign are all registered, you can use one or all of these parameters in your next marketing campaign. The consumer sees a marketing ad that redirects them to brand.com/wtb?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=halloween2021.

 

 

 

Step 3 (Optional): In order to only track the campaigns with a specific campaign ID, like Facebook campaigns for example, select “Track all values” under Campaign ID to expand the column.

 

Step 3.1: Select “Track only pre-registered values” and add the campaign ID, like ‘Facebook’, in the blank field. This option then requires adding in new campaign IDs each time, in order to track the new campaigns, i.e., on Instagram and Pinterest. 

 

Note: When parameters are registered, it will default to “Track all values'' and will track everything that comes after the = sign, so it will track all campaigns (i.e., FB, Instagram, Pinterest). 

 

It is recommended to select to track all values and it will track anything that comes after the parameter that is registered (i.e., utm_source), in order to avoid this extra step each time.

 

Step 4: Click Save within the Universal Tracking Setup window.

 

Note: Campaign Tracking is compatible with other tracking analytics software's, such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. Paired with these tracking software's, PriceSpider’s data analytics provides otherwise unseen metrics and insights into your customers' habits thanks to PriceSpider’s relationship with various retailers. 

 

Additional Note: Campaign IDs are case-sensitive. PriceSpider steps will consider campaigns labeled as ‘FACEBOOK’ and ‘Facebook’ as different campaign IDs. It’s best practice to standardize naming conventions to avoid separate campaign instances (i.e. Facebook, facebook, fb, FB). See Appendix II and III for more information.

PriceSpider’s Parameter Best Practices: Make the campaign parameters generic enough as a category, so you can reuse the parameter and avoid continuing to register different parameters for each new campaign.

 

Retailer Campaign Tracking

Retailer Campaign Tracking applies to campaigns Brands run through an ad (i.e., Instagram, Facebook, email, content, display etc.) and instead of directing consumers to the WTB Tech, they are directed straight to the retailers’ page - PDP - (i.e., Amazon, Target, etc.). Therefore, the consumer never sees the WTB Tech. This path reduces the number of clicks it takes your customers to land on the retailer’s product page and increases the consumer conversion. 

 

Setup 

Step 1: Send Retailer URL

In order to generate the links for campaigns that go directly to the retailer, reach out to PriceSpider Support by submitting a request on help.pricespider.com or submit a ticket through Insights 360 (bottom right ‘Help’ button).

 

What to Send to Support:

1. The retailer’s product page URL(s): where you want to drive the traffic 
2. The Campaign parameter(s): (optional, but recommended)
3. The Campaign ID(s): (optional, but recommended)

 

If you are running separate campaigns, provide Support with all individual links and Support will give the same number of links back. For example, if you are running three campaigns, provide the three product pages and Support will provide three corresponding links. You will receive them back via your Support ticket or if a large number of links is provided, you will receive an Excel file. 

 

See Glossary table for examples of campaign parameters and IDs. 

 

Step 2: Add URL to Your Campaigns

 

The link you receive back is the link you will use in your campaign to direct your consumers to the retailer’s product page you provided. 

Please see Appendix IV for limitations regarding Retailer Campaign Tracking.

 

 

Appendix

Appendix I

There are 5 parameters you can add to your URLs in line with Google:

1. utm_source: Identify the advertiser, site, publication, etc. that is sending traffic to your property, for example: google, newsletter4, billboard.
2. utm_medium: The advertising or marketing medium, for example: cpc, banner, email newsletter.
3. utm_campaign: The individual campaign name, slogan, promo code, etc. for a product.
4. utm_term: Identify paid search keywords. If you're manually tagging paid keyword campaigns, you should also use utm_term to specify the keyword.
5. utm_content: Used to differentiate similar content, or links within the same ad. For example, if you have two call-to-action links within the same email message, you can use utm_content and set different values for each so you can tell which version is more effective.

 

Read more here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863?hl=en 

 

Appendix II

• For both the Brand Campaign setup options, there are character limits and special character limitations
• We recommend using 1-50 characters per Campaign Parameter and Campaign ID

 

Appendix III

Supported Characters

Description	Supported	Not Supported
URL Parameter Characters	Parameters may only contain these values (we used past data AND this link to set our list of supported values). ONLY these characters will be supported. Anything not on the list should be considered unsupported. Alphanumeric - two parameters with different casing are seen as the same value. i.e. UTM_SOURCE vs. utm_source _(underscore) -(dash)	Parameters may NOT contain the values below. = (equal) ; (semi-colon) / (slash) # (hash) ? (question mark) : (colon) space & (ampersand) * (asterisk) " (quotation mark) ' (single quote) ( ) (parenthesis) ~ (tilde) ` (tick) % (percent) We do not encode/decode parameters. The value passed in the URL MUST match the registered parameter in Insights 360 .
UTID Characters	UTIDs may only contain these values. ONLY these characters will be supported. Anything not on the list should be considered unsupported. Alphanumeric - two UTIDs with different casing are seen as different values. i.e. FACEBOOK vs. facebook - (dash) _ (underscore) | (pipe) + (plus) ! (exclamation) . (period)	UTIDs may NOT contain the values below. = (equal) ; (semi-colon) / (slash) # (hash) ? (question mark) : (colon) space & (ampersand) * (asterisk) " (quotation mark) ' (single quote) ( ) (parenthesis) ~ (tilde) ` (tick) % (percent) We encode all UTID values when running in the browser and we decode all values prior to storage. EX: param = utm_source utid = facebook

 

Appendix IV

Known limitations regarding Retailer Campaign Tracking:

1. For Amazon, PriceSpider does not support direct-to-retailer links for digital banner ads. This Amazon restriction is for all properties (including Fresh, PrimeNow, etc.), and covers both US and International and paid/sponsored social media ads.
1.  This is because Amazon sees paid ads via these experiences as direct competition (as it drives up CPMs).
2. PriceSpider also does not support direct-to-retailer links for Paid Search ads for ALL retailers.

 

 

 

Glossary 

Term	Definition
Where to Buy (WTB) Technology/Tech	The WTB technology can be added to PDP, LP or be invisible to the customer. It enables the brand to connect a customer with a product at the preferred retailer. The WTB Technology on the website displays product availability, price and CTR.
Where to Buy Module	Additional modules that enable WTB Technology and customers with additional features like: Ratings & Reviews, Bundling, Recipe
Product Detail Page (PDP) Synonym: Retailer’s product page URL	A product detail page is a dedicated page for a product typically listed with information such as product name, image, description. PDPs can exist on brand sites and retailer sites.
Landing Page (LP)	A Landing Page is a standalone web page where users are taken to once they click through on a campaign.  A landing page can have embedded WTB Technology and additional brand graphics. Landing Page can be hosted by brand or PriceSpider.
Universal Tracking	The complete suite of PriceSpider’s tracking capabilities consists of four pillars: Campaign Tracking, Sales Tracking, WTB Performance Tracking, and Retargeting Enablement.
Insights 360 Portal	A PriceSpider portal to view and analyze data collected.
Campaign Tracking	Insights from PriceSpider that measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns through clicks and sales, brands can get a better understanding about the success of their campaigns.
Campaign Parameters Synonym: URL parameter	These URL parameters help identify the source, placement, or type of campaign you’re running. Ex: utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign.
UTM	Urchin Tracking Modules (UTM) are URL parameters used by marketers to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across traffic sources and publishing media. There are 5 UTM parameters that are supported by Google Analytics and can also be used with PriceSpider’s campaign tracking once registered: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, utm_term.
UTID	UTID is synonymous with campaign ID.
Script Synonym: Tag	A code-snippet that is placed on a website to enable tracking.
Campaign ID	These identifiers help track the specific campaign running, allowing you to see the performance of each per Campaign Parameter. Ex: facebook, paidsocial, halloween2020