Conversion Points

Owned by Ongage OngageConnect
Last updated: Jan 22, 2023
6 min read

Table of Contents:

Introduction: What is a Conversion Point

Ongage conversion points are used to track post click conversions on a website for example, to where the recipients of your email message arrived to, after they clicked on a link in the email message you sent them:

When the thank-you page loads, the pixel fires, reporting back to the Ongage platform (via an HTTP call), about the conversion, for that specific contact.

Example of conversion points are:

  • Registration.
  • Signed up for webinar or demo.
  • Downloaded a whitepaper.
  • Purchase.
  • etc. 

Once implemented, you'll have campaign stats that include conversion numbers, just like you have stats for opens and clicks, you'll have numbers of registrations for example.

Also, you'll be able to create Segment criteria based on these behavioral conversion points, just like one has for opens and clicks, you can create a segment of all those who purchased in the last month.

Conversion Points: Basic Technical Notes

  1. You can add up to 5 Conversion Point Pixels in your account by default. If you have more than one list, you have to decide how many conversion points you want to use on each list. Please contact support if you want to configure more than 5 Conversion Points for you account. Note also, that you can have no more than 5 conversion points per each list (i.e., if you have 2 lists, you can have a max of 10 Conversion Points).
  2. Ongage conversion pixels can be implemented either as client side or sever side – both are supported.
  3. It takes on average about 20 minutes for a conversion pixel to be processed from the time the Ongage platform receives it.

Conversion Point Pixel Overview

(info) Go to List → Conversion Points menu item in order to define and setup conversion point pixels


An Ongage conversion point pixel looks like this: 

http://your_ongage_tracking_domain/?xx=YE16pO13nJs4h&ei={{email}}&xc={{ocx_mailing_id}}&xv={{value}}

The following parameters are passed back on the conversion pixel:

  1. Email {{email}}  --or-- Encoded Email {{ocx_email_hash}} in order to associate the conversion with that recipient email.
  2. CID (AKA Campaign ID) {{ocx_mailing_id}} in order for the conversion stat to get associated with that campaign.
  3. (Optional) value: send back a value associated with conversion. For example if the conversion is a purchase you can send back the value of the purchase.
    1. (warning) The value must be an integer. I.e., if the purchase value on your website was $24.99, then pass here in the conversion URL &xv=2499

Your conversion pixel needs to be implement on the post-conversion page of your website (e.g. the thank-you page of a registration or purchase). For more details see below.

How to Implement an Ongage Conversion Point Pixel

  1. Go to List → Conversion Points  and click on "New Conversion Point"


    And fill in the following:


    1. If you'd like to also pass back a value and get sum of that value in the aggregate report – check the "Save sum of value in stats" option. 
      This is particularly useful to get a sum total of all purchases for a given campaign, figure out earnings per thousand emails, etc. 
    2. In addition you can save the values to a list field by clicking the "Save conversion value to list field" option.

  2. Copy the conversion pixel URL, from your Ongage account
     
     
  3. Place the conversion pixel on the post conversion page of your website
    1. For example: Let's say the conversion is "Registration", on the thank-you page following the registration form, place the pixel URL you got from the above dashboard
    2. See below details for how to implement the pixel on the post-conversion page

  4. When setting up a email campaign, in the Email editor add the following dynamic fields to the relevant links in your email, that sends the recipients to the landing page where they'll be converting:

    1. Dynamic field: {{email}}

    2. System field: {{ocx_mailing_id}}

    3. So the link will look something like this: http://my-landing-page/?email={{email}}&cid={{ocx_mailing_id}}

How to implement the conversion pixel on the post conversion point page 

Your website programmer will be required to capture the values of the variables that arrived on the link to the landing page, and pass them back on the pixel that you'll fire on the post conversion page. For example:

// Capture the variables on the landing page
<?php
   $email = $_GET['email'];
   $cid  = $_GET['cid'];
?>
 
// Pass on the values to the post conversion page and populate the pixel with the values, that the recipient arrived with
// This is an example of a client side pixel that you'd plant in the post-conversion page
// When this page loads, the following pixel will load and send back the conversion data back to Ongage
<img src="http://track.myowndomain123.com/?xx=YE16pO13nJs4&ei=<?php echo $_GET['email']?>&xc=<?php echo $_GET['cid']?>" width="1" height="1" >

How to Implement Email Encryption  

Sending a encrypted email address in both the email message and then back on the conversion pixel

This does not require any programming! Simply do the following:

  1. On the link in the email message send {{ocx_email_hash}} instead of {{email}}
    e.g.,  http://my-landing-page/?email={{ocx_email_hash}}&cid={{ocx_mailing_id}}
     
  2. Capture the hashed email on your website, just like you would capture a regular email
    I.e., $enc_email = $_GET['email'];

  3. Send back the encoded email as is, on the pixel, just use &xih parameter instead of &ei
    E.g., http://track.myowndomain123.com/?xx=YE16pO13nJs4&xih=

How to use Conversion Points Data in Segmentation and Reporting

Create Behavioral Segment using Conversion Points

Once the Conversion Point is created, it creates a new behavioral option in segmentation based on which you can create a segment for Conversions. For example, you can create a segment for contacts who went through the funnel and the Conversion Point Pixel was fired in the last 30 days.


Aggregate Report with Conversion Point/Revenue Data

For each Conversion Point added to the List, an additional column with the Title of Conversion Point is added in the Aggregate report by default.

  • You can Add/Remove the column using the column Hide/Show drop down mentioned in above screenshot. You can view a report for that Conversion point, based on Per Campaign, Per Day, Per Week, Per Month, etc. depending on your use case.
  • (info) When populating sales values related to the the conversion, this report enables you to see the sum of sales/revenues per campaign, day, week, month.

Appendix 

If you only need to send an encrypted email address back on the conversion pixel

The following is what your programmer will need to implement if you want the email addresses that are passed back on the conversion pixel to be encrypted.

The method

  • The Private/Public key encryption is a secure method to encrypt data that needs to be decrypted afterwards.
  • The way it works is that our system generates a key which you use to encrypt your data, in this case, the email address.
  • This key is the public key
  • Once the encrypted data arrives to our servers we decrypt it with our Private key which is known only to us.

How to use it:

In order to user the public key to encrypt your data you need to run a command with the public key that you copy form the UI as one of the parameters.
The results should be put in the email field of the parameter “xih” in the URL: &xih=encoded_email

Example of PHP code that does that:

// this is a sample of public key as taken from Ongage UI
$pub = '-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MEwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADOwAwOAIxALm4L+Dvc0gZSjCYOxqBohNgNDbEct/D
tDoYP3zQdelGx/D/qzFLo1PASNp+k28TyQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----';
  
// the data to be encoded
$data = 'john.doe@email.com';
  
// call the encoding function. $enc is returned by reference
openssl_public_encrypt($data, $enc, $pub);
  
// make the encoded email usable by base64-encoding it
$encoded_email = base64_encode($enc);