Events are external actions taken by recipients, either as a result of campaign contact or because they have made themselves known to marketers, for example by registering on a website, making a purchase, or by responding to an offer advertised in the mainstream media. Events are sometimes viewed as the feedback, positive or negative, that marketers use to measure the success of the campaign.
There is a very open definition of what could constitute an event, but examples may include a product purchase as a result of a campaign, or an unsubscribe when a recipient uses the 'Unsubscribe' link at the bottom of an email, or a person signing up to a loyalty scheme that they saw advertised on a billboard.
Events can be captured in two ways:
Using the Import Events tool.
Using the When in Segment tool.
These two tools can be used in isolation or in combination. Take the following scenario:
Your company launches a new product and to generate interest you email 2,000 of your best customers offering them a discount on the product, with a link in the email to the your website where they can redeem the discount and purchase the product.
Making a purchase via this link then fires off an event which can be imported into Campaign Manager and used to trigger a subsequent campaign action, maybe the allocation of loyalty points or a thank you email. If this process breaks down for some reason, maybe due to increased browser security settings, or because the recipient buys directly from the website, then the When in Segment tool can be used as a backup to capture purchases that these 2,000 people made that didn't register as an event. The segment rule may include any purchase of the product made by the 2,000 recipients within ten days of the email going out.