What Are Channel Mapping Rules?
Channel Mapping Rules offer an efficient way to categorize your website's traffic according to specific channels and vendors. This component of the Channel99 Platform provides you the versatility to classify visitor traffic originating from any vendor or channel you choose.
These rules are based on a set of industry-standard inputs that are widely known in the marketing field, which will be explained further.
The process involves assigning each visit to a unique Channel/Vendor combination based on a set of defined rules. These rules are created by using the following parameters: Medium, Source, Referral Domain, or Custom Parameter. This allows you to sort and view your site traffic in an orderly and straightforward manner.
Finally, you will assign a priority to each rule. This is crucial for situations where two rules may conflict with each other. In such cases, the rule with the higher priority will overrule the other, ensuring that your categorization system remains consistent and effective.
Getting Started
Mapping rules may seem daunting to create from the ground up, so we've established a set of default rules for you. These pre-made rules are tailored to be universally applicable and are already integrated into your account, ready for customization if required. To view or modify these rules, or to generate new ones, simply navigate to your Channel Mapping Rules page. Follow the instructions below for guidance.
Editing Channel Mapping Rules
- Once logged into the Channel99 Platform, navigate to the "Configure" menu and choose the "Channel Mapping Rules" item in the submenu.
- Channel Mapping Rules are populated in the platform by default. However, you have the flexibility to modify these rules. For example, you might want to categorize traffic under different channels and vendors based on parameters like Medium, Source, Referral Domain, or Custom Parameters.
- Medium and Source are found as part of the standard UTM parameter format which means they will be preceded by UTM_Medium or UTM_Source in the landing page URL.
- Referral Domain comes into play when visitors arrive at your site from another one. This can also be used to classify traffic.
- Custom Parameters offer an alternative when you either don't have or prefer not to use UTM parameters. They allow you to create rules based on any part of the query parameter, which are the characters following the "?" in a URL. Although this method offers the greatest flexibility, it can be complex. Therefore, using UTM parameters is generally recommended when possible.
- To Edit the a rule you may start by clicking the Edit logo in the upper right corner of the screen. (within the green box in the image below)
- You may now edit any rule values which will be used to classify a visit into any Channel/Vendor.
- Note: All values in each row are added together as an AND function, not an OR function. This means that If you enter the value "Banner" in the Medium box and "Adroll" in the Source box, C99 will only classify traffic with both values in the URL at the same time.
- If you would like to classify all traffic which has "Banner" as a Medium OR "Adroll" as a Source, place them in two different rules instead of one as shown below. Now, if either value is found within the URL query string, it will be classified as Display traffic from Adroll.
- The use of comma values within each cell can function as OR operators for that column's attribute, allowing you to create more flexible rules. For instance, look at the example image below. There, we've used a shortcut to avoid creating multiple rules for 'Display' via 'Demandbase'. If the UTM Medium for incoming traffic is either 'ABM' OR 'Targeted', it's classified as 'Display' from 'Demandbase'. This is accomplished without adding two separate rules to the Channel Mapping Rules page. This technique can be applied to any rule column.
- After you've established your rules, you need to assign each a priority. This safeguards against inadvertent rule conflicts, ensuring that the intended Channel and Vendor receive the appropriate recognition.
- After you've added or revised your rules, be sure to hit Save and Run to activate them. This process, which quickly categorizes your traffic correctly, takes only a few moments on the platform.
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