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Newsletter measurement

You want to collect the full potential of your data via INFOnline Measurement?

We recommend that you additionally integrate the pseudonymous measurement into your newsletter. Please note that participation of your site in IVW reporting may require parallel integration of pseudonymous measurement and census measurement in your newsletter.

Census measurement

Attention

If you activate pseudonymous measurement via the INFOnline Measurement Manager, it is mandatory to have the standalone script integrated in newsletter.

Requirements

  • Relay client container (hosted by INFOnline or self-hosted)
  • Registered domain service name as CNAME (hosted by INFOnline), AAA(A) (self-hosted), DNS entry
  • Site ID (provided by INFOnline GmbH)

Restrictions

Similar to pseudonymous measurement, census measurement also provides integration for newsletter measurement. To enable the measurement of HTML newsletters, a functionally restricted HTTP call is used without the use of JavaScript. This measurement variant comes with a number of limitations due to the lack of JavaScript functionality:

  • no collection of URLs or HTTP referrers with privacy-compliant automatic shortening
  • no consideration of DNT
  • limited ability to detect false or automatic retrievals

Integration

The HTTP call for HTML newsletters is implemented with a simple <img> tag that is built into the <body> of the HTML newsletter: 

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<img src="https://<domain service name>/base.io?np=<code>&st=<site>&cn=<country>" alt="iomb_np" width="1" height="1" />

Attention
- To ensure correct measurement, the tag must be copied unchanged into the source code of the respective newsletter.
- Only the placeholders framed by <...> may be changed.
- Line breaks, upper and lower case must be kept!

The following placeholders must be adjusted accordingly when including the <img> tag in your newsletter:

Placeholder Type Default Length Pattern Mandatory Description
<site> string - 15 ^[a-zA-Z0-9_]*$ yes site identifier
<domain service name> String - - INFOnline CNAME convention1 yes Domain service name (CNAME or AAA(A) host)2
<country> Enum de - no INFOnline Country (de or at)
<code> String non-mapping_code 256 [^a-zA-Z0-9,_/\-?#.] yes Newsletter code for the IVW Kat 2.0 association
<comment> string - 256 /[ -~]/ no optional comment

1 INFOnline CNAME convention: /^(data-)([a-f0-9]{10})\.([a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9-_]{0,61})(?:\.([a-z]{2,62}))?\.([a-z]{2,62})$/

2 If the notation of dn / domainServiceName does not match the INFOnline CNAME convention mentioned, no measurement takes place
.

Newsletter code handling.

All codes used in newsletter measurement are prefixed with PUSH_ when entered into the measuring system. The consequences of this special treatment are shown below with an example.

You use the following call in the HTML source code of the newsletter email: 

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<img src="https://<domain service name>/base.io?np=foo&st=bar" alt="iomb_np" width="1" height="1" />
When a user calls up the newsletter email, a measurement pulse with the code foo is sent to the INFOnline census processing system, which automatically prefixes the code with PUSH_ when capturing the measurement pulse. Thus foo becomes PUSH_foo and is consistently passed on to the subsequent systems in the notation shown above:

  • Code allocation in the customer center
  • IDAS evaluation
  • All data deliveries containing arbitrary page codes



pseudonymous measurement

Integration

In order for the newsletter requests to be fully collected and processed in our pseudonymous measurement process, the newsletter script must be integrated as follows:

Important!

Please pay attention to the legal applicable regulations when sending newsletters.

  1. insert the newsletter script into the of the HTML newsletter:
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<!-- SZM VERSION="2.0" -->
<img src="https://de.ioam.de/tx.io?st=Angebotskennung&np=Code&mo=0&ct=010fff0000" width="1" height="1" alt="szmtag" />
<!--/SZM -->
  1. adjust the variables "st" (site ID) and "np" (page code).
Note

To ensure correct measurement, the SZM tag 2.0 must be copied unchanged into the source code of the newsletter to be measured. Only the specified variables may be changed. Line breaks, upper and lower case letters must be kept!

1.1 Technical restrictions

In order to enable a coverage survey of HTML newsletters with the pseudonymous measuring system, a functionally restricted http call-up is used without the use of JavaScript.

The lack of JavaScript functionality results in the following restrictions in data collection:

  • no collection of URLs or referrers with data protection compliant automatic shortening
  • no collection of screen resolution and color depth
  • no consideration of DNT
  • weaker client resolution, e.g. no separation for no-cookie clients hidden behind proxies
  • reduced ability to detect fake or automatic retrievals

These technical limitations may have a negative impact on the detected usage values of your digital site (e.g., lower number of detected clients).

1.2 Meaning of the variables in the newsletter tag

abbreviation meaning description
st Site ID

(site) marked "site ID" in the example under Integration		 The site ID assigned to your digital site; this is created by INFOnline and assigned once; the ID is a maximum of 8 characters long.
np Code

Marked with "page code" in the example under Integration		 The code can be freely defined by the provider and is used to identify its tagged newsletters in the measuring system.

The code is the basis for subsequent category assignment in the INFOnline Customer Center (KAT 2.0).

The code may contain a maximum of 255 characters and consist only of alphanumeric characters; the following special characters are permitted: ',' '/' '-' '_'.

The sum of active codes for the site digital offer should not exceed a total number of 3,000. Use of more than 3,000 active codes is subject to a charge.

NOTE: For testing purposes, "np" can be replaced with "xp". In this case, the requests will be discarded by the measuring system.
ct Consent-Variable The variable "ct=010fff0000" is used to inform the measuring system that this request may be processed in the IVW context.

Please observe legal regulations for newsletter surveys.

2 Analysis of newsletter requests in IDAS

Codes from the newsletter measurement are automatically prefixed with "PUSH_" when entering the measuring system.

Example:

  1. use the following newsletter script with page code "NLCODE123": 
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    <!-- SZM VERSION="2.0" -->
<img src="https://de.ioam.de/tx.io?st=Angebotskennung&np=**NLCODE123**&mo=0&ct=010fff0000" width="1" height="1" alt="szmtag" />
<!--/SZM -->

  2. call of HTML newsletter by user - page code NLCODE123 is sent to measuring system.

  3. page code NLCODE123 automatically becomes PUSH_NLCODE123.

  4. the page code "PUSH_NLCODE123" will be sent to all downstream systems like

    • Code allocation in the Customer Center
    • IDAS evaluation

    are displayed.

Note

Please pay particular attention to this when assigning codes in the Category System 2.0, which you do in the INFOnline Customer Center (code management).

Last update: July 21, 2023