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ShoppingAdvisor - Adding Tracking Parameters

With ShoppingAdvisor you can add additional tracking parameters to the URLs for each shopping site feed by using Business Rules.

With any business rule in ShoppingAdvisor, you will need to perform three basic steps:

Write the Business Rule
Setting the Rule on a Feed Template
Preview the data feed to see the results

Writing the Business Rule to Add Tracking Parameters

There are two basic scenarios that you will have when updating tracking parameters on your outgoing URLS:

1 - Appending the parameters directly to the end of the URLs that are sent in your data feed.

In this scenario, your base URL in your incoming data feed will not contain any extra parameters for tracking. A sample URL might look something like this:

http://www.myonlineretailstore.com/products/lookup/SKU1234.html

We are assuming that this URL text is stored in the ActionURL field in the incoming data feed. The goal here is to add a parameter to this URL. In this example, let's assume the shopping site is Shopzilla and that the URL needs to look like this:

http://www.myonlineretailstore.com/products/lookup/SKU1234.html&shoppingcode=shopzilla

Steps for creating the Business Rule:

In ShoppingAdvisor goto the Data Mapping Tab, click on Business Rules and then click on the New Business Rule link.

Enter a name for the Business Rule. In this example we will call it "Tracking Code - Shopzilla". It's good practice to include the name of the shopping site in the rule so you will know which one to choose from when applying it on the feed template.
In the Expression box you will use the CONCATENATE function to join the base URL and the tracking code together. CONCATENATE uses up to 8 different text strings and/or fields and returns a string with all of those values combined. Here is the code to be placed in the Expression field:
CONCATENATE( $actionurl, "&shoppingcode=shopzilla" )

NOTE: whenever you want to refer to a data field you must always prepend the name of the field with a single dollar sign.

Once you have the rule setup click on the Save and Validate button to check the syntax you have entered. Then you can click on Save and Exit once the syntax has passed validation.

2 - Replacing text in the URL that is used as a placeholder

In this scenario, your base URL in your incoming data feed will contain a placeholder that will be replaced with the proper code(s). A sample URL might look something like this:

http://www.myonlineretailstore.com/products/lookup/SKU1234.html&shoppingcode=XXXX

We are assuming that this URL text is stored in the ActionURL field in the incoming data feed. The goal here is to replace the XXXX with the proper code. In this example, let's assume the shopping site is Shopzilla and that the URL needs to look like this:

http://www.myonlineretailstore.com/products/lookup/SKU1234.html&shoppingcode=shopzilla

Steps for creating the Business Rule:

In ShoppingAdvisor goto the Data Mapping Tab, click on Business Rules and then click on the New Business Rule link.

Enter a name for the Business Rule. In this example we would call it "Tracking Code - Shopzilla". It's good practice to include the name of the shopping site in the rule so you will know which one to choose from when applying it on the feed template.
In the Expression box you will use the REPLACE function to replace the XXXX part of the URL with the proper code. REPLACE finds text within a string and replaces all matches with new text. Here is the code to be placed in the Expression field:
REPLACE( $actionurl, "&shoppingcode=XXXX", "&shoppingcode=shopzilla)

NOTE: whenever you want to refer to a data field you must always prepend the name of the field with a single dollar sign.

Once you have the rule setup click on the Save and Validate button to check the syntax you have entered. Then you can click on Save and Exit once the syntax has passed validation.

Setting the Rule on a Feed Template

Next you will want to set this rule on the Shopzilla template.

Goto Data Mapping then click on Templates.
Click on the template you are using for the Shopzilla feed.
Find the field being used for the Product URL.
NOTE: Each template will have this field in a different position on the template and it may be called a different name. If you have difficulty locating it then try looking for the field that is mapped to actionurl as the default value.
Change the Data Source to Business Rule.
Select the business Rule "Tracking Code - Shopzilla".
Click on the Save and Exit Button at the bottom of the template.

Previewing the Data Feed

Once you have applied this business rule you can preview the feed to ensure that the URL tracking codes have bee added.

Goto the Feeds Tab.
Select the feed that you want to preview by clicking on the checkbox next to it.
Click the Preview Button at the top of the list.
You will be prompted with your email address where the feed link will be sent to.
Click on the preview button.