If your mailing contains many links it may not be meaningful to make each link trackable separately. What you do want to know, however, is how many recipients clicked on any link at all. OpenEMM lets you do this by using summation. You will define an action which will automatically be carried out if a particular link is not activated. In order to be able to use this function, you will need to do the following:
• | Define an action which increments a numeric field in the recipient’s profile by 1. The field must, of course, feature in the recipients database; if it isn’t, you will have to create it. |
• | Define this new action as a Default action for trackable links. |
• | If a trackable link already has another action assigned to it, amend this other action by the step used in the standard action. |
The following example will give you a step-by-step explanation of the process. Start by creating a field.
1. | Click on Administration in the navigation bar, then on the sub-menu Edit profile fields. Click on the New field tab. Define Click count (or any other meaningful name) as a Field name. Enter a short, but meaningful Description for the new field – for instance click_count. Under Fieldname in DB enter Counter for trackable links. Do not change the field entry Numerical for Type. Assign a Default value of 0. Save the new settings by clicking on the Save button. Further information on fields is contained in chapter "Extending recipient's profiles". |
2. | Now call up the Sites & Actions and open in the Actions area the tab New action. Select a meaningful Name in the entry dialog, e.g. Link feedback. In the Description box, you can give a description of the intended aim of the action. The Usage drop-down list should be set to only for Links. Select Modify profile in the Add step section in the Type drop-down list and click on the Add button. |
3. | The OpenEMM will now display the entry fields for the first step of the new action. Select the field which you have just created from the Column name drop-down list. In our example, it is the CLICK_COUNT field. Do not change the plus sign in the second drop-down list. Enter 1 into the last entry field in this line. Now click on the Save button. |

Fig. 3.34: This action increments the click counter by 1.
4. | Now call up the Mailings section and open the detailed view for the mailing where you would like to count all link clicks. Call up the Trackable links section. This will give you a list of all links embedded in the mailing. The column, Action, shows for each link whether or not clicking on it will cause a certain action. The action Link feedback is meant to follow each link click where this column shows No action against the link. |
5. | Click on the Default action below the table. The OpenEMM opens an entry dialog of the same name with several entry fields. In the Default action drop-down list, select the entry called Link feedback (or whatever name you gave it). Click on Save to store your entries. |
6. | If none of the links is linked to a different action, you have now successfully set up the counter function. In other words, in the column named Action, all fields should say Link feedback (or whatever name you gave it). If you find another link with another action, you must edit the action, because OpenEMM can only initiate one followup action per link. If you do not edit the action, the link in question will not count in the click counter. However, if you wish to leave out a link in order to count the clicks separately, you may also skip step 7. |
7. | Write down the name of the action in question and open the Actions section. Now click on a name in the overview to call up the detailed dialog for that action. You will now add one step to the action – the very same step you used for your Link feedback action. Follow the procedure described in step 2. This adds one more step to your action, incrementing the CLICK_COUNTER by 1 each time. Click on Save to store your entries. |

Fig. 3.35: Add the relevant step to each of the actions used in your mailing.
There is now one further entry in the recipient overview. This will show you whether or not the recipient clicked on a particular link in the mailing.
Please note: In your definition of that particular action, you also give a meaning to the number which appears here. It is possible either to count all clicks regardless or to decide that certain links from the mailing should not count in the total number of clicks.