Interactive channels

An interactive channel is a representation of a client-facing touchpoint that is used to coordinate all of the objects, data, and server resources that are involved in interactive marketing.

Guidelines

In general, create one interactive channel for each touchpoint you are integrating with Unica Interact. For example, if you have a website and a call center to integrate withUnica Interact, create two interactive channels, one for each type of touchpoint.

You might also want to create different interactive channels for representing same-type touchpoints. For example, if you have different websites for your company's different brands, create an interactive channel for each brand, even if each site is hosted on the same server.

Interactive channels and the other components

Interactive channels are where you organize and configure several components of the interaction configuration, including interaction points, zones, events, and categories. The interactive channel is also where you map profile tables and deploy the interaction's processes and strategies to the runtime servers. You can find links to the other components of the interaction configuration (interactive flowcharts and treatment rules) from the Summary tab.

Interactive channels and the Unica Interact API

Interactive channels are one of the three elements of the Unica Interact configuration that interacts directly with the Unica Interact API. You must use the exact name of the interactive channel when you use the startSession method in the API. This name is case insensitive.

Number of interactive channels used

You can have as many interactive channels as required for your organization. Different campaigns can reference the same interactive channel for the interaction strategy. The interaction strategies for the interactive channel are accessed from the Summary tab of the interactive channel.

For example, you have one campaign for new cell phones and another campaign for new calling plans and each campaign has an interaction strategy for the website interactive channel. The same campaign can have several interactive strategies, each referencing a different interactive channel. Therefore, the new cell phone campaign can have an interaction strategy for the website and an interaction strategy for the call center.