Best Practice Guide - Event Source Configuration and Processing

A Campaign Event is an action on which activity is triggered. For example, an action from a campaign recipient, or an action supplied by business processes. Any input to the system that has a required outcome might be considered an Event. A key question is, how quickly should that event be reacted to?

In the retail vertical, for example, a product purchase is a significant event, and the action may trigger a customer going to the next stage in a Customer Journey. The transaction data itself is likely to come into Campaign Manager as part of the nightly load process. Triggers reacting to that data, such as sending further incentives or a stage transition, might very well be sent in the following days of a purchase and this is perfectly acceptable.

For the retail market, a drop basket event is significant in a different way. This is a missed sale opportunity that may want to be reacted to intra-day. This is a very different scenario and in this case, the event needs to come into the system in the sort of timeframes that allows us to trigger an interaction with the Customer while their actions are still fresh in the minds.

Campaign Manager provides tools to perform both of these operations, but in very different ways. Choosing the right method is key.

An Event Source is a definition of an Event that the system is looking for to generate those events internally for triggering. For example:

• Email Manager Creative: Events - Clicked, Open etc.
• External File of Events- Each row would represent a customer contact event such as a file feed from a Call Centre of who called for a specific purpose in the last hour.
• Data Warehouse Table –An Order table is a table of Order events that can be queried.
• Data pushed directly into the CM Event API – Constructed in a similar way to File Events but supplied via API with no file.

Once the event is received, a trigger is the action taken in Campaign Manager or Campaign Designer to execute for individuals when an Event from a particular Event Source is detected.

KEY FACT:

The CM 6.0 Best Practice - Tracks Events and Polling guide covers how Event Polling occurs. That information is not repeated here, but should be referred to if required.

An Event can be defined in three different ways, depending on the source of the event.

Email Manager Event

When using a Send a Message tactic in Campaign Manager or an Email element in Campaign Designer, the system automatically creates the ability to select an Event to trigger on. This is done as follows:

In Campaign Manager

Clicking on the Trigger section on the track

In Campaign Designer

A more limited set of options are available for this release, click the Email Event element.

API/File based Events

These are events coming into the system via file or API, they are defined using the Import Events tool in Campaign Manager. Once configured, they are added to the appropriate position in the campaign or saved as a template for use in Campaign Designer.

The screen shot below shows how the Import Event node can be saved as a template.

For more information see the ‘Business Case’ section or online help.

When In Segment Events

These events are specific to Campaign Manager, they query a table and produce an event based on table data.

Events are added on the Events tab available in:

1. Tactic/Creative based Events – Events that are related to a contact, e.g. Email Opened

Global Campaign Events – An Event that might drive an action regardless of the recipient’s position in the campaign. For example, if a Customer makes a second purchase, they are removed from a new Customer incentive campaign.

2. In both cases, the configuration is the same. The following screen shot shows the location of the two tabs, and shows a ‘When in Segment’ Event configured on a Tactic/Creative. The Event looks for a product purchase from the Product Group = “HI”.

The Event Source itself is simply a definition of what the Event is, for example “Email Open”, “Called a Call Centre”, “Purchased a product” etc. Once the Event is in place, you can define what will happen if that Event occurs - this is a Trigger.

Triggers can be defined on a Track, or Globally. The following screen shot shows the two locations Triggers can be set. When you click the Triggers tab, a display shows the possible Events for that Trigger, including the one in the previous example.

Once the Event to be Triggered has been selected, the action for the Trigger is defined, and the recipient moves to a new Track.

KEY QUESTION:

When do I use a Global Events or Triggers and when do I use a Tactic Event and Track Trigger? A Global Event and Trigger combination will be an Event that you want to look for regardless of where a recipient is in the campaign, that is Opt-Out, Subscribe etc. A Tactic/Creative Event/Trigger will only apply to that Creative, that is Open of a specific email and Trigger an action will only apply in the Track that email was sent in. The new Campaign Designer user interface currently only has the concept of non-global events.

Every execution of a contact in Campaign Manager has a unique identifier associated with it. This is the HistoryId and exists as a stored piece of data on the Contacts table and Response table in a column called HistoryId.

The HistoryId data is a concatenation of an internally generated unique identifier for the execution of a Tactic, with the recipient’s unique identifier as defined in the Campaign Key. Every contact will capture a HistoryId against it in the Contacts table to allow tracking and attribution of all communications and responses. For example, on a weekly newsletter campaign the same Tactic/Creative will have a different Id each week.

For example, the first event Tactic Output would have an Id of 100 so, for a recipient with Id 123, the HistoryId for the first contact to that recipient would be: 100_123.

NOTE:

Each Tactic Output can contain more than one Tactic Type, known as a Creative Instance. For example, a Tactic may have two file outputs, one for the mailing house and one for a record of the contact for a third-party system. In this case, the two outputs would have different TacticInstanceId. The TacticInstanceId is therefore more accurately a Creative Instance Id or Creative Instance key.

Outputting the Creative Instance Key with a Tactic Output

As described above, the Creative Instance key is unique identifier for every Tactic Output. It can be output in the exported data by selecting it on the Fields tab of the Tactic Output from the Campaign Attributes menu. The screen shot below shows this on a File tactic Output.

For Email Manager tactics, the Creative Instance Key is automatically uploaded to Email Manager.

Importing Events that carry the Creative Instance Key

To attribute Events coming into the system to a specific outbound contact requires the inbound Event to carry the Creative Instance Key and Recipient Identifier. This is so the unique HistoryId can be created for that event on the Responses table, which links back to the Contacts table automatically for attribution.

For Email Manager Events this process occurs automatically, but for other types of Tactic Outputs and the subsequent Events they may create, this must be configured for the inbound event feed.

Events processing using the Import Events node for file or API events, allows the definition of the columns of data containing the Recipient Identifier (key column) and the Creative Instance key.

If both pieces of information are provided, and mapped in the configuration, the event processing will automatically concatenate these two elements and populate the HistoryId data on the final Responses table. The link will be recreated and hence the event can be directly attributed to an outbound communication. The screen shot below shows for the inbound event, that column 1 contains the Recipient Identifier (Campaign Key) and column 3 of the inbound event contains the value for Creative Instance Key, as output in the File Tactic in the previous section.

NOTE:

To save the configuration as an Event Definition Template, right-click the Import Events tool in the Campaign Manager user interface. Once saved these events can be used in the Campaign Designer application using Inbound Event elements, which will display a list of all Event Definition Templates and allow the user to select the event they want to trigger on in their campaign.

Every Email Manager ‘Send a Message’ creative has a “hidden” Event Source associated with it. Hidden means that this Event Source or its properties and attributes cannot be interacted with. The processing of these events is automated and no polling configuration is required.

By default, Event Sources are polled every 180 seconds. This interval can be adjusted using the Polling Setting on the Attributes tab.

The source of the Event data can vary, but falls into two categories. The type of data carrying the Event drives the choice of tool used as an Event Source.

When in Segment

Used to run a query against the Data Warehouse. For example, querying the transaction table for a product purchase.

If the Data Warehouse is loaded nightly, there is little value in having this polling at a high frequency as the data will not change. Therefore, it is likely that a long polling period is appropriate for this tool.

KEY QUESTION:

What happens if the campaign or the system is paused? When the system is paused, all polling activity stops. When the campaign system re-starts, the polling frequency will pick back up and if a job has been missed, it will create a job straight away. Example: Imagine a polling time of 14400 (4 hours) is set. The system finds it is due to run at 5pm and executes. At 7pm, the system is paused for data load. It comes back on line at 8am the next day. At 8am, the polling system would see this has a job that last run at 5pm the day before and would say that it is due to run as it has not run for at least 4 hours, so would create a job straight away.

Import Events

This tool is used to process a data file from an external source, for example a file from a Call Center. Recipients have responded to a campaign by calling the Call Center, and that system outputs a list of those recipients on a regular basis throughout the day to be processed by the Campaign Manager system.

This type of Event Source is more likely to need a shorter Polling time depending on how often a new data feed is available. If, as in the earlier example, a new file is created every hour from the Call Center, that will govern the Polling time for the Event Source.

API Events

An API Event is an Event from an external source that is pushed into the system using a piece of API code. These will be preconfigured and will require some professional Services or Development work to integrate the two systems.

API Events are the only part of the system that is a push, and as such has no polling.

It is important to understand the use of Events in conjunction with Tracks to avoid over aggressive Polling.

The process of Events entering the system can be complex, which allows the system to handle various scenarios. Possibly the most complex is the background process of Event Chaining.

When an Event fires a Trigger, it is going to be at its most effective if all recipients are as far through the campaign as they can be before it fires. As we know, the Tracks already have Polling and so the Track poll would move someone to a Track with that frequency. A worst-case scenario is that recipient may not be in the right Track when the Event comes in due to long period Track Polling.

The first thing that Event processing does if ‘Do Immediately’, is to execute the Tracks to move everyone as far through the Track as they can go. It then processes the Event Triggers for the Track and proceeds to the next Track from left to right. This is based on the assumption that campaigns tend to be structured so audience members move from left to right as they progress through the engagement cycle.

KEY FACTS:

Event processing executes every Track before it processes the events to make sure all recipients are as far through the campaign as they can possible be. This Track processing is on top of the Track polling that already exists. For Campaign Designer campaigns the overall processing is the same, where Timer or Event elements can be considered as a new Track. In Campaign Designer, Tracks are referred to as phases.

The batch of events may include more than one Event for each recipient (e.g. Email Opened, Link Click) so to ensure that every Track has an opportunity to trigger off its particular Event, the whole batch of Events is allowed to trigger for the participants of each Track in turn.

What actually happens when an Event Source is found?

1. Process Tracks – For ‘Do Immediately’ Tracks, any unprocessed Track recipients are processed. Any recipients sitting at the top of the Track will be pushed through that Track to ensure they move as far as they can go through the campaign.
2. For the members of each Track from left to right:
   1. Global Triggers are executed. (If an opt-out event is in place, it is important this is processed first to avoid unwanted communication in Track Events.)
   2. Track Triggers are executed from left to right.

KEY FACT:

Remember Event Chaining - Since the execution of the Trigger may cause members to move to the top of Tracks further to the right and since there may also be individuals waiting at the start of tracks, there may be some unprocessed recipients. We choose to force these unprocessed recipients through the ‘Do Immediately’ Tracks before we action any triggers. This is in keeping with the semantics of ‘Do immediately’ and means that a user knows that if a recipient enters a ‘Do Immediately’ Track they will always complete it before any Triggers are actioned.

Previous sections of this document have focused on the Tools and processes involved when using events, now we will look at how to set up a specific example to show how this is actually achieved.

KEY CONCEPT:

A key concept in these scenarios is around the difference between Events and event arguments. An Event might be the dropped basket and the arguments are the details of the items in the basket, for example their product code and price. Marketers want to trigger on an Event, and as part of the trigger, capture and re-use the event arguments. For example, when a dropped basket occurs, contact the customer giving them an offer on one of the items they dropped. Any communication back to the Customer will be via a Tactic and the tactic, such as an email, can use campaign variables to populate values in the creative. Campaign Manager allows event arguments, such as basket item names, to populate variables in a tactic prior to it being sent.