Source groups

A source group is a collection of traffic sources. By creating business rules, you can group and rename specific traffic sources to facilitate analysis and improve your visitor acquisition strategies.

 

 

A source group is therefore a grouping of these traffic sources according to business rules that you define.

This takes the form of a property in your data model with a so-called "calculated" treatment. This property is not fed by tagging, but is calculated by our engine each time you query it. It is therefore retroactive.

 

 

Example

For my winter sales, I launched a "winter sales" campaign combining several traffic sources:

• Paid Search / SEA: Search engine ads dedicated to my campaign
• Emailing: Promotional email dedicated to my campaign, sent to my client base
• Social media contest: Contests to promote my products on social media (Facebook and X only)

Instead of creating complex datasets in Data Query, I can simply set up a source group that gives me the result I want right away.

"Winter Sales" source group :

• Source "SEA" :
  • src_medium is equal to "cpc" or "Paid search" or "SEA"
  • src_campaign is equal to "Winter sales"
• Source "Emailing" :
  • src_medium is equal to "Emailing"
  • src_campaign is equal to "Winter sales"
• Source "Social media" :
  • src_source is equal to "Social media"
  • src_details is equal to "Facebook" or "Twitter" or "X"

 

This "Winter Sales" source group is therefore a property of the same name that you can use in the solution. It can take the values "SEA", "Emailing" or "Social media".

 

 

Creating source groups

Source groups are available from the acquisition management interface, including :

• Traffic sources (coming soon)
• Source groups

You'll find this interface in Data Management, under the Sources menu.

To create a source group, click on the "+" icon in the lower right corner of the screen.

 

 

Metadata

In the Metadata tab, you can create the property set to become your source group. You need to give it a name (property label), and you can add a description to better explain the need covered by your source group (optional).

Some information is automatically added to the property:

• Treatment : Calculated
• Custom : True (Custom property)
• Property_key : sg_x (where x is a number corresponding to the source group. My third source group will be `sg_3`)
• Category : Source

As with any property, you'll find your source group in your data model properties. You can change the category and enable the Personal Data flag if necessary. The rest of the source group configuration can only be done through the dedicated interface.

 

Rules

The Rules tab allows you to edit the rules for your source group.

This is where you enter the different sources in your group and the criteria that will ensure that certain visits are taken into account in the sources in question.

The interface is divided into blocks, with each block representing one source.

 

Blocks

Each block represents one source in your source group. A block consists of several elements:

• If : Set of criterion for feeding the source
• Then: Value taken from the source within the source group. Stands for one of the property values you'll find in the interface (each block has a different value). Once the "Then" is entered, the block is renamed to reflect the value.

The first thing to do is to name your block (fill in the "Then" field).

Next, you can select the feed criteria for the source. To do this, first select one of the source properties.

Then select an operator. This can be :

• Value - Compare the value of the selected property to a specified value
• Property - Compare the value of the selected property to another property

 

Finally, enter the value or property according to the selected operator.

You will have configured your source as follows:

 

 

Add a source

Once you've set up your first source, you can create up to 9 more (for a total of 10 sources). Follow the same procedure as above.

 

Add a default source

You can also add a default source.

Instead of selecting source feed criteria, you decide that all visits that don't match the configured source criteria will end up in this source. This is a "default" case:

 

 

Modifying a Source Group

To change a source group, click it from the list of source groups available in the interface.

You can modify:

• Metadata : The name and the description of a source group
• Rules : Blocks that represent each source. Blocks can be deleted, added, or modified.

You can also start from scratch to reuse a Source Group. To do this, click the "Refresh" button at the top of the drawer.

 

Limits

Number of source groups

Up to 20 source groups can be created.

 

Number of sources per group

You can create up to 30 sources in each source group.

 

Number of values for each detection criterion

You can add up to 20 items for each detection criterion:

Source group availability

Because source groups are "calculated" processing properties, they do not exist in our databases and are calculated each time they are queried.

Consequently, they are not available in Data Flow and Data Sharing, which are tools for exporting stored data.

 

Use cases

Specific campaign tracking

You can use source groups to track specific campaigns (see example above).

 

Alternative source model

You can use source groups to create an alternative traffic source model. This allows you to rename certain sources that you don't feel confortable with in the native traffic sources, create new sources, or group others together. 

 

 

Merge marketing and organic

You can use source groups to combine organic information with marketing information.

For example, it might be useful to create a Social Media All (paid + organic) source group that includes :

• Visits from sponsored links on social media (tracking link)
• Organic visits from social media (referrers)

This gives you a new perspective on the performance of your acquisition levers.