The following are the most commonly asked questions related to the data collection scripts.
Is my business data safe with the data collection scripts?
Absolutely. Emarsys holds the ISO 27001 certificate and uses the highest encryption standards for data transfer. Furthermore, the data collected on your web shop is used to create statistical models for your account only, and does not contribute to any central model.
Which formats are supported for the product catalog?
Product catalogs need to contain the data prescribed in our guidelines. We support both our own .csv format and the Google Product Feed format, but you will need to ask Emarsys Support to enable GPF.
Can I store my product catalog on an SFTP server?
- FTP and FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS) are supported; these must start with ftp://. SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) is currently not supported.
How secure is my product catalog for the daily updates?
Your product catalog should only contain product information that is anyway publicly available on your website. Even so, the data collection scripts support fetching password-protected catalog files on secure URLs. A standard URL for a password-protected file should look something like this: https://username:password@server.foo.com/catalog.csv
Can the data collection scripts track the same visitor across multiple devices? (For example, if they browse my shop from a desktop PC at work and a laptop at home.)
Yes. Since we track non-identified visitors with a persistent cookie, we can keep all information from that device and connect it to a customer ID as soon as they use the same device to log in to the website or click a trackable link leading to it from an Emarsys email. The cookie will of course collect all visitor data, and will not differentiate between actual visitors if more than one person is using that device. The cookie will also only keep data for as long as it is active (cookies have a rolling 1-year lifetime from the last website visit).
What actionable data fields do the data collection scripts provide?
The scripts update a special set of fields in the Emarsys database with the latest browse, purchase and abandon actions on your website. Click here for a list of these fields. Click here for some suggestions on how to use them to enhance your day-to-day marketing campaigns.
How do the scripts use product categories?
The data collection scripts provide category information in three ways:
- Top categories (most interested products throughout the last week)
- Last session categories (categories seen in the last session)
- All categories ever purchased, etc.
You should experiment with the category column you use in different scenarios. For example, Last-session categories is good way to express short-term interest, whereas All categories ever purchased is better for long-term trends.
Why do I only have revenue data going back to June 2015?
In response to customer feedback, Emarsys version 8.3 made some of the data collected by the scripts available for revenue reports on the Trends and Campaign Reporting pages. These reports only relate to campaigns launched after this release (in June, 2015).
Is the Scarab queue JS file minimized?
Yes, it is. We are aware that many site optimization tools recommend minimizing JS elements, therefore we have minimized our scripts.
How does Emarsys handle the general approach of browsers to control third-party cookies?
Browser vendors started to introduce changes to their cookie policies to limit user tracking without consent, mostly reliant on third party cookies. Emarsys is aware of these intentions and follows the releases of the browsers (Google Chrome > Safari > Firefox > other) most prevalent among its customers to maintain the capabilities of its services while protecting the privacy of website visitors.
Does the Emarsys Suite support server-to-server tracking for Web Extend cookies?
At the moment, this is not supported yet.
Does Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP 2.2, 2.3) cookie policies impact the capabilities of the Emarsys Suite?
Apple regularly updates the ITP policy to prevent user tracking without consent. Unfortunately, this may affect the abilities of Predict to a degree.
- ITP 2.2 (from iOS 12.3 and Safari on macOS Mojave 10.14.5 onwards) maximises the allowed lifetime of persistent client-side cookies at one day. Capping cookie lifetime affects the accuracy of the Web Extend based Predict service as user reidentification is prevented past one day. However, Predict is still able to collect data.
- ITP 2.3 (from Safari on iOS 13, the iPadOS beta, and Safari 13 on macOS for Catalina, Mojave, and High Sierra onwards) limits the lifetime of all script writeable non-cookie data stored in the browser to seven days.
Only a subset of recommendation scenarios are affected negatively (some abandoned cart and session cases with users not logged in). Products from the most popular categories are presented automatically instead of personalised data in these cases.
These policy changes impact all competitor tracking solutions. As the Emarsys Suite offers multiple touchpoints across multiple channels, the negative effects are mitigated in media independent from browser technology.
Although ITP policies are active since the first half of 2019, our clients did not report degradation in the quality of recommendations and their performance.
Emarsys is currently investigating the effects of the ITP and other incoming browser cookie policy changes to ensure that our recommendation capabilities remain the same. We will incorporate the findings to further improve our service.
What is Emarsys doing to reduce the effect of cookie policy changes?
Although personalization capabilities of the Emarsys Suite are slightly affected in certain scenarios, the general use of personalization services is unchanged.
- Emarsys is working on a solution to provide privacy friendly personalization in the future as well to build trust with our customers.
- Emarsys can use in-session data and data based on the behaviour of the whole customer base to provide personalization and recommendations. The content of your webpage or emails is never affected negatively.
- Emarsys monitors browser changes and legal requirement changes to maintain compliance.
- Campaign-level revenue attribution is always maintained.
What can I do to mitigate the effect of current and future tightening cookie restrictions?
Although Emarsys is working on a solution to track user behavior on our client's websites while complying to legal requirements, a number of techniques are available for you as well:
- Incentivize login with loyalty programs, or make certain premium content available only for logged-in users. Logins make it far easier to identify individual users.
- Recommend using mobile apps with built-in browsers. The cookie policies of major browser vendors are not applicable to these. Currently, mobile apps generate more traffic than desktop applications, and their market is expected to further grow.
- If possible, use External IDs to identify your customers, as this helps Emarsys to maintain personalization by being more resistant to cookie blocking in some situations.