Order Links with Customer Variables for Pre-pop (Legacy)
- Tony Browne
This article will introduce how to set up order links with customer variables for pre-pop in Blueshift and Message Central.
4 min read
Table of contents
Description
Order links contain customer specific variables that identify recipient and mailing/campaign. The feature supports populating customer data on order form, known as pre-pop.
Design
Order form URL wrapped in <a> or <area> tags are appended with variables to identify and verify recipients. These variables personalize URLs based on recipient's Advantage customer data, metadata of the mailing/campaign and a hashed variable.
Data Source
Advantage customer data replicated to Message Central/Blueshift and data to identify mailing/campaign and link.
Additionally, a vid is attached as a safety measure.
Blueshift
Description
Order link variables is modeled as a shared asset in Blueshift that can be used anywhere in email templates.
Design
With more flexibility, you'll have option to attach order link variables to any hyperlinks.
Order Link Variables
Variable | Value | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Advantage customer number | 12-digit customer number generated by Advantage and mapped to Blueshift user_transaction.group_id attribute. user_transaction.group_id |
| Blueshift campaign uuid | campaign_uuid identifying Blueshift campaigns. |
| Source | Specifying source of the link. eml for Blueshift. |
| Blueshift experiment uuid | experiment_uuid identifying Blueshift experiments. |
| Verification ID | The result of processing Advantage customer number, campaign_uuid, and a hex key by md5_vid. |
| Blueshift Link ID | bsft_link_id identifying hyperlinks in <a> or <area> tags assigned by Blueshift. Link ID is unique by Blueshift template. |
| Blueshift Execution Key | bsft_ek identifying individual Blueshift mailings. In conjunction with campaign_uuid, child mailings can be identified even when they are on the same Blueshift campaign. Execution key is a UTC timestamp following ISO 8601 format. Sample: 2019-10-10T12:34:56Z |
Order Link Variables
customerNumber={Advantage customer number}&campaignId={Blueshift campaign uuid}&r=eml&experimentId={Blueshift experiment uuid}&vid={Verification ID}&bsft_link_id={Blueshift Link ID}&bsft_ek={Blueshift Execution Key} |
Steps to Create an Order Link
Order links are written in Liquid script:
{% assign conId = {{user_transaction.group_id}} %}
{% assign shsec =Â "5018bbccde7b4d3ecf0b800b39e7200f"%}
{% assign mailingId = {{campaign_uuid}} %}
{% assign vid_string = mailingId | append:Â "|" | append: conId | append:Â "|" | append: shsec %}
{% assign vid = {{vid_string | md5_vid}} %}
{% assign contactId = {{user_transaction.group_id}} %}
{% assign mailingId = {{campaign_uuid |Â default:Â ""}} %}
{% assign experimentId = {{experiment_uuid |Â default:Â ""}} %}
<a href="{{orderLink}}?customerNumber={{contactId}}&campaignId={{mailingId}}&r=eml&experimentId={{experimentId}}&vid={{vid}}">Order Link Description</a>You may store the scripts and make it reusable. Handle the scripts in shared assets: one to generate vid, and the other to generate the variables.
Order Link Verification ID
{% assign conId = {{user_transaction.group_id}} %}
{% assign shsec = "5018bbccde7b4d3ecf0b800b39e7200f" %}
{% assign mailingId = {{campaign_uuid}} %}
{% assign vid_string = mailingId | append: "|" | append: conId | append: "|"Â | append: shsec %}
{% assign vid = {{vid_string | md5_vid}} %}Order Link
Template Source
In the template, apply both shared assets and specify orderLink using the script below:
Sample Variables
Message Central
Description
In Message Central, parsed links are categorized as regular tracking, order tracking or no tracking. Order link variables are automatically appended to the URL of order tracking links.
Design
When a URL has a match on relational.agoraorderurls table, the link is then parsed as an order tracking link. URLs on the table are registered per affiliate requests.
Tracking type can be manually updated Link Tracking tab. In other words, order link variables can be added to any URL.
Oder Link Variables
Variable | Value | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Message Central orgid | A unique identifier assigned to each Message Central org. |
| Message Central mailingid | A unique identifier assigned to each mailing under a Message Central org. |
| Message Central segmentid | A unique identifier assigned to each segment under a mailing. |
| Message Central contactid | A unique identifier assigned to each Message Central contact. Each Advantage customer replicated to Message Central has a contactid. |
| Message Central linkid | A unique identifier assigned to each parsed link. Each linkid represents a unique combination of URL, link description, tracking type and link group. |
| Message Central stack | A unique identifier to specify resource of the link. MC means Message Central Stack 1, whereas MC2 indicates Stack 2 |
| Verification ID | The result of processing orgid, mailingid, contactid, and a hex key by agora_checksum(). |
| Message Central linkgroupid | A unique identifier assigned to each link group. Parsed links are assigned to link group, Default, by default. |
Order Link Variables
Steps to Attach Variables
Insert the URL properly wrapped by <a> tags to a piece of content
Parse the content containing the order link
In UI, simply save the change
or request MCS parseContentForLinkIds service
Select tracking type order
In UI, navigate to Link Tracking tab and select from dropdown
or request MCS updateLink service
Sample Variables
Wrap up
You should now understand how to set up order links with customer variables in Blueshift and Message Central.
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