Events

Used for:

Message Content
Building Audiences
Triggering Messages
Analytics

Events Overview

The event data collection (referred to as contactactivites in the database) contains behavioral data records for all contacts in the system. These include standard message events (sends, opens, clicks, etc.), custom named events associated with website behavior (browse, cart) as well as external events captured by IoT devices (opened door, triggered alarm, etc.).

Each event is associated to a contact via the contact's primary key (contact's email address).

Event data can be used to personalize content in a message, build an audience, trigger message sends and view stats over time.

How Events Are Stored

Here is an example of how event data is stored in JSON within the contact activities collection:

[
   {
    "cID": "58c6dae96e05abd5fef72184",
    "_id": "58c7170250c860b711c3af04",
    "properties": {
      "category": "Shirts",
      "url": "http://cordial.io/demo",
      "description": "Really cool shirt.",
      "price": 10.5,
      "title": "Red Shirt"
    },
    "action": "browse",
    "time": "2017-03-13T22:02:42+0000",
    "email": "fredgarvin@example.com"
  },
  {
    "cID": "58c6dae96e05abd5fef72184",
    "mcID": "45:dfd5c31449b9fb9f42da7bb0a79f94ee:d170313:58c6dae96e05abd5fef72184:1489445319",
    "mdtID": "56e85788733462ca899bc891",
    "_id": "58c721c867b929236e8b4567",
    "action": "message-sent",
    "time": "2017-03-13T22:48:40+0000",
    "bmID": "45:dfd5c31449b9fb9f42da7bb0a79f94ee:d170313",
    "email": "fredgarvin@example.com",
    "properties": {
      "stp": "dyn"
    }
  },
  {
    "cID": "58c6dae96e05abd5fef72184",
    "mdtID": "58c839b36e05abd5fefc63aa",
    "mcID": "45:f2a318f9a064d93760c4beaa39970d72:d170323:58c6dae96e05abd5fef72184:1490308322",
    "first": true,
    "_id": "58d44d7d5c90d40c7992ca66",
    "action": "open",
    "time": "2017-03-23T22:34:37+0000",
    "bmID": "45:f2a318f9a064d93760c4beaa39970d72:d170323",
    "email": "fredgarvin@example.com"
  }
]

The above example show 3 events associated with the same contact: a browse event, a message sent, and a message open. The events associated with a message contain additional information about the message and the browse event shows additional information about the product that was browsed (title, price, etc).

Note: All event activity is stored in Cordial for 18 months. Message opens and clicks are tracked for 30 days from the time of a message send, after which tracked links will expire. You are able to request a default URL (such as a home page) for expired tracked links by contacting your client success manager.

How Events Are Created

Message Events

Message event data (send, open, click, bounce, etc.) is created and stored automatically in the system when a message event takes place.

Custom Named Events

Custom named events are created by you depending on your marketing strategy.

For example, if you want to send a cart abandonment message, you would need to create a custom named event called something like "cart" that would be used to trigger a message send when a contact adds an item to their cart. In this same example, you would want to create another custom event called "order" that would be used to cancel the cart abandonment message should the contact complete the purchase.

Learn how to create a cart abandonment message.

You can also create custom named events that track browse behavior on your website for triggering a browse abandon message if a contact leaves your site without purchasing.

Learn how to create a browse abandon message.

There are many opportunities for triggered, personalized messages using custom events. You could create events for when contacts view a video, or download a PDF, or like an article. You could also create events based on IoT behaviors such as triggered an alarm, or opened a door. The options are limitless!

Regardless of the event name, all custom named events are passed to Cordial using JavaScript listeners embedded on your site, or via an API call.

Custom events contain the name of the event (browse, cart, order), as well as the optional properties associated with that event such as a URL, images, descriptions, etc.

Viewing and Exporting Events

Viewing Event Data

Event data is viewable in the UI or via the API.

To view event data in the UI, navigate to Analytics › Event Data Reports.

You are able to filter the report results by event type, contacts, audience rules and date ranges.

Learn more about viewing event data reports

Event data is also viewable via the API. You can make an API call to view all events or filtered events.

Learn more about viewing event data using API calls

Exporting Events

You are able to export event data via the UI or via an API call.

Learn about exporting event data in the UI

Learn about exporting event data using the Contact Activity Export API

Using Events in Message Content

Message content can be personalized based on a contact's event behavior using the Smarty getEventRecords method.

With Smarty, you are able to query event data per contact, filter and sort records, then display the event and its associated properties in a message.

This is useful in browse abandon campaigns where a contact viewed items on your web site but failed to add anything to the cart or make a purchase. You could trigger a message via a browse event, then display the last 4 items they browsed in the message.

Learn more about rendering event data in a message using Smarty

Building Audiences Using Events

Using the Audience builder you are able create audiences based on message events and custom named events.

The image below highlights the audience rules associated with events:

You can combine audience rules and create complex queries such as: "Show me all females that browsed the women's category in the last 7 days and opened any message in the past 30 days".

The following image shows the audience rules used to create the above query:

Learn more about the audience builder

Triggering Messages with Events

With message automations you are able to trigger message sends based on custom named events. For example, if you have an event called browseCat that contained a property called womens, you could trigger a message when that event is passed to your account.

To trigger an automated message based on a custom event, use the Event Triggered sending method, and choose the Trigger Event: "Custom Event".

Learn more about automated messages

Creating Reports and Analytics Using Events

On the Analytics pages in the platform you are able to create Event Dashboards and Event Data Reports to visualize and learn more about event activity.

Event Dashboards

Event dashboards provide a way for you to create multiple dashboards consisting of multiple charts of time-based event data activity. This allows you to compare contact behaviors on your website with message activity for a holistic view of your marketing strategy performance.

For example, you could create a series of charts that visualizes website browse activity of multiple categories, message engagement, abandonment and purchases:

Event Data Reports

You are able generate a report of all events passed to your account on the Event Data Reports page. This provides you with a log of all events in a chronological order. You are able to filter the event report by event type, contacts, audiences and date range.

This report can be exported to a CSV or JSON file and downloaded or sent to SFTP or an Amazon S3 bucket.

Learn more about Event Data Reports

In the next article learn about products.

In This Section

Events Overview

How Events Are Stored