Targeting Digital Analytics segments in campaigns

Digital Analytics lets users define segments based on visit and view level criteria. When you configure a Select process in Unica Campaign, you can use these segments as the data source.

Before you begin

To use segments exported from Digital Analytics in Unica Campaign, the two products must be integrated. Configuring the integration is explained in the Unica Campaign Administrator's Guide.

About this task

If you used Digital Analytics to make segments available to Unica Campaign, you can target those segments in a campaign flowchart.

Unica Campaign users who are using both Unica Deliver and the post-click analytics tools can also make use of Digital Analytics segments. The optional post-click analysis tools track customer behavior from the click-through of an email or hosted landing page and subsequent navigation through the web site (within the same visit or session) to browse or buy. Unica Campaign designers can use the analytics to determine how to create follow-up campaigns.
Note: Unica Deliver requires separate integration steps. See the documentation provided with Unica Deliver.

Procedure

  1. Double-click a Select process in a Unica Campaign flowchart to open the Select process configuration dialog.

    If the Select process contains a previously defined Digital Analytics segment, the Input box on the Source tab shows the existing segment name.

  2. Open the Input list and click Digital Analytics segments.

    The Digital Analytics segment selection dialog opens.

  3. Select a Client ID to see a list of the published segments for that Digital Analytics client.
    Note: The Select segment list shows only the segments that were created for the client ID that is selected. To see other published segments, select a different client ID.
  4. In the Select segment list, choose the segment that you want to use:
    • The Select segment list indicates the Application where the segment was created, its Type, and its Start and End dates, as defined in Digital Analytics.
    • The Description should help you determine the purpose of the segment. If you need more information about a segment, double-click it to see the segment expression and other information.
    • The Start date and End date next to each segment indicate the Digital Analytics-defined date range for finding visitors who match the segment criteria. For example, one segment might find everyone who visited a particular site at least 3 times between January 12, 2012 and April 12, 2012, and another segment might find visitors from a different range of dates. The Digital Analytics-defined date range cannot be changed here. However, you can use the Segment range date controls at the bottom of the dialog to define a date range that falls within the range defined in Digital Analytics.
  5. Use the Segment range date and calendar controls at the bottom of the dialog to specify the date range from which you want to obtain data for the selected segment.
    If you are modifying (as opposed to creating) a Select process, the existing segment range is displayed.
    • The range that you specify must fall within the Start date and End date defined for the segment in Digital Analytics (shown next to each segment in the list).
    • In addition to taking the Start and End dates into account, Unica Campaign also considers the date constraint (if any). The date constraint is defined in Digital Analytics but does not appear in the Segment selection dialog. The date constraint limits the number of days' worth of data to pull for a segment, to ensure that Digital Analytics is not overloaded with exporting a large data set.

      For example, say there is a segment defined in Digital Analytics with a 3-month span (Start and End date) and a date constraint of 7 days. The date range that you define in Unica Campaign takes both constraints into account. If you specify a date range outside of the 3-month span, your segment definition cannot be saved. Likewise, if you specify a date range that exceeds 7 days, your segment definition cannot be saved.

    • You can specify absolute or relative dates, as long as they fall within the Digital Analytics-defined range and date constraint.
    • If you specify an absolute Start Date, you must also supply an End Date. For example, if the Digital Analytics-defined segment defines a 3-month span, your campaign can target visitors whose information was gathered on a single day, month, or week within that span.
    • Examples of relative dates:
      • If the Digital Analytics-defined segment is for a 3-month span, you can specify a relative date, such as Yesterday or Last 7 days, to continually find recent visitors. The campaign will run successfully until the Digital Analytics-defined end date occurs.
      • If you specify THIS MONTH, the full month of data must be available up until the day before this relative date is used. For example, if today is March 28, data from March 1 - March 27 must be available for the selected segment.
      • If you specify LAST MONTH; the full previous month of data must be available. Example #1: If the Digital Analytics-defined segment has a start date of March 1 and an end date of March 31, LAST MONTH can be used starting on April 1, up to and including April 30 (to get data for the month of March). Example #2: If the Digital Analytics-defined segment has a start date of March 1 and an end date of March 30, LAST MONTH cannot be used, because there is not a full month of data. Example #3: If the Digital Analytics-defined segment has a start date of March 2 and an end date of March 31, LAST MONTH cannot be used, because there is not a full month of data. In these cases, a message indicates that LAST MONTH does not fall within the segment dates. Instead, you must use absolute dates.
  6. Click OK to return to the Select process configuration dialog.

Results

When the Select process runs, it pulls data from Digital Analytics for the segments within the specified date range and date constraint. The mapping table used for the flowchart tells Unica Campaign how to convert Digital Analytics IDs to Unica Campaign Audience IDs. The Audience IDs are then available for use in downstream processes. For technical information about how this works, see the Unica Campaign Administrator's Guide.

In rare situations, when you run a flowchart, the number of Digital Analytics IDs for a selected segment might not match the number of Audience IDs found in Unica Campaign. For example, there might be 100 Digital Analytics keys but only 95 matching IDs in Unica Campaign. Unica Campaign warns about this situation but continues running the flowchart. A message is written to the log file for that flowchart, asking you to verify that your mapped translation table contains updated records. An administrator can resolve this situation by (re)matching the online and offline keys according to your corporate policy and repopulating the translation table with up-to-date data. You must re-run the flowchart after the mapped translation table is updated.