Importing external tracking data (legacy document)
If you don't want to use Productsup Tracking, but still want to use the ROI Strategy feature and/or see your tracking data in Reporting, you can integrate your own tracking from a third-party platform (Marin, Google Analytics, etc.).
You can choose to use external tracking data for ROI Strategy only or to import them in our Database to see the data in the Reporting tab.
Using external tracking data for ROI Strategy only:
Step 1: Create a feed with the tracking data
Tracking data can only be uploaded in the platform in the form of a data feed. The platform requires a URL to import the feed.
We recommend that in your feed you provide the product ID to match the data with your product feed to get tracking data on product level.
If you can't provide data on a product level, you can provide data at a category level instead.
If you want to provide data for a different export channel, make sure to provide unique column names, e.g. Google_clicks, Nextag_costs.
You can choose the time range that you want for the data. Be sure to use a dynamic time range, e.g. "last 30 days" instead of a static time range, e.g. "from 2015-09-20 to 2015-10-20". The tracking data should be updated daily.
Tracking data must be aggregated for its applicable time ranges. Do not provide the same ID twice in the feed for two different periods. Rather, combine these.
e.g. do not provide
product_id | day | clicks |
|---|---|---|
1234 | 2015-12-15 | 5 |
1234 | 2015-12-16 | 12 |
but
product_id | clicks |
|---|---|
1234 | 17 |
Step 2: Upload the feed in the platform
Here, you want to upload the tracking data feed as an additional feed.
For more information, see Enhance your products with additional data sources.
Step 3: Implement ROI Management
After importing the data feed in the platform, you can now use ROI Strategy
Read our guide here, for more information on ROI tracking.
Using external tracking data for both ROI Strategy and Reporting:
Data for ROI Strategy comes from a feed in DataSource, whether you use Productsup Tracking (in this case the feed will be automatically generated) or not (and you import your own tracking data).
The Reporting tab takes the information from the Productsup database.
For this, you need to be able to:
Import tracking data into the relevant site on the platform.
Create a feed using the export channel "External Tracking" to convert your tracking data to the correct format.
Upload the feed directly in the Productsup database.
Step 1: Create a feed with the tracking data
This time, rather than providing aggregate data for a time range, you'll need to provide a feed that only contains the tracking data from yesterday. Everyday the platform will import the data from the day before and upload the in the database.
Be sure, as before, that the feed does not contain the same product ID twice, but also only that it only contains the data for one day.
product_id | day | clicks | orders |
|---|---|---|---|
1234 | 2015-12-15 | 5 | 1 |
Step 2: Activate the "External Tracking" template and create a feed
Warning: you'll need to import the data into a site that is different to the one where you want to see the tracking data in reporting.
E.g. All my active export channels are in website 123456. I need to create a new site '123457', where in the "External Tracking" template, I can provide my site 123456. Now the tracking data will be saved for this site with my live channels.
Activate the export channel External Tracking
Product_id: the product's ID. These should match the product IDs provided in your main product feed.
Site_id: enter the site ID of the site you want to track. Use the Static Value Box to create the value.
Costs_cpo: costs per order for a product for yesterday. optional
Costs_cpc: costs per click for a product for yesterday. optional
Site_channel_id: the channel ID is the sub-ID of an export if you activate more than one Dataflow (see A/B Testing)
Costs: costs for a product for yesterday.
Profit: profit for a product for yesterday. optional
Revenue: revenue for a product for yesterday.
Click: clicks for a product for yesterday.
Order: orders for a product for yesterday.
Campaign_id: this is unique ID every Productsup export template has, e.g. '1' for Google Merchant Center. Please reach out to our Client Solutions department to receive this information for your particular channel.
Date: yesterday's date. If you don't have this information in your feed, you can create it with a box combination:
Using 'Timestamp', show today's day
Using 'Math', subtract one day
Convert the format into Y-M-D. this is the format you need to export. Ex: 2015-08-16
Step 3: Export the tracking data in Productsup database
As feed destination in Exports> Setup, select External Tracking
Click on export.
A few minutes later, you will see the tracking data in the reporting tab of the other site.
What happens if I export more than once?
The last export will overwrite the previous export for this date, but only for IDs contained in the tracking feed. It won't delete any data, only overwrite them.
Example #1:
I export first 20 clicks for the product ID 12345 for the date 2015-08-15. The reporting shows 20 clicks.
I export again but this time 25 clicks for the date 2015-08-15.The reporting will now show 25 clicks.
Example #2:
I export first 20 clicks for the product ID ABC789 for the date 2015-08-15. The reporting shows 20 clicks.
I export again for the date 2015-08-15, but this time the product is no longer in the tracking feed. The reporting still shows 20 clicks
This also means that you can't delete data (only overwrite them). Please contact our support if you want to erase tracking data.