One reason we created Engine9 was to make it easier to run coordinated digital campaigns across a bunch of platforms that were never designed to work together. A BIG part of that effort is making sure your data is clean, well-structured, and organized in such a way to make it possible. Harmony is the word that comes to mind. Your data should harmonize. 

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At engine9, our infrastructure serves campaigns and organizations with great, good, bad, and even ugly data practices, and we’ve seen firsthand how transformative a great data strategy can be. In our experience, there’s always one thing that separates ugly from good, and good from great: solid source coding.

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Most organizations are source-code savvy these days, but in case you’re new to the party, a source code is just a string of unique characters for every outbound link. Source codes have largely replaced cookie- and pixel-based event tracking in digital marketing. (Those methods are still used, but they’ve become increasingly unreliable in the face of browser and platform changes meant to enhance privacy and security.)

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A lot of traditional digital marketing platforms are still reliant on these aging technologies. For a long time, using proprietary systems was the best way to get reliable marketing data, but times are ‘a changin’. Organizations that want to future-proof their data operations against platform changes, user preferences, and privacy laws are adopting source codes as the primary method for connecting outbound marketing efforts to results. 

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The Good and the Bad/Ugly

Before we dive into the deep end, a couple examples. A good source code contains within it all the parameters you’ll need to ask questions of your data later. A bad source code has missing pieces, and a truly ugly source code could actually harm your reporting by screwing with your data.

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Here’s a good source code from one of our smartest agency clients:

{{account_prefix}}_{{source_code_channel}}_{{subchannel}}_{{goal}}_{{source_code_date}}_{{campaign}}_{{audience}}_{{geo}}_{{targeting}}_{{variant}}_{{media}}

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This source code contains everything you would need to perform a deep analysis of a digital ad campaign: channel/platform, campaign name, goal, send date, targeting/audience information, and some details about the specific ad variant. Any way they want to break this down, they can do so using these dimensions in their data visualization tool. 

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Here’s a source code that is… less good. 

{{fiscal_year}}_{{department}}_{{media_type}}_{{[fund}}_{{variant}}_{{source_code_date}}

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Using this source code is going to run into some major limitations if the analysts looking at the data would like to understand much about the performance data. It’s missing a channel designation, so to start whoever is looking at it better already know if it’s a source code for email, an ad, an SMS, or something else. Most of the parameters in this source code are inward-facing, so if it turns out to be not very important which fiscal year this source code is from, or what department created it, then those elements are just wasted space. 

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The Real Value of Source Codes

Taking ownership of your data operations doesn’t mean much if the methods you’re using to encode, extract, and attribute valuable data are dictated by someone else. Unless you’re calling the shots, you’re not going to get the answers you want from your data. 

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External marketing agencies often focus on short-term ROI over long-term growth and sustainability. Platforms (Facebook, Google, e.g.) will offer “out-of-the-box” solutions but really they’re trying to engineer low-effort, scalable solutions that are just barely “good enough”. Google Analytics and Facebook Conversions API are good examples of this. To follow their methods is often the path of least resistance, but is that going to give you the insights you want into your strategies and tactics, or just drown you in cookie-cutter metrics that only exist in a data silo? What happens when you want to change agencies or add new platforms, like SMS? 

First Steps to Mastering Your Data

Taking ownership of your data starts with goals. What are you really trying to measure? You don’t care about open rates; you care whether your email program is growing, whether you’re connecting the right people with the right message, whether your donors believe in you enough to keep supporting you. That’s what matters. 

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Once you’ve determined your goals, you can begin to think about how to best measure them. You’ll need to assemble the metrics you want to measure, and the dimensions you’ll want to use to slice and dice your data. 

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Next you want to start building your source codes. At Engine9, we’ve observed a few best practices that we think will help:

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• Use a consistent hierarchy. Start with the most important and highest level dimensions first, like channel (e.g. ads), subchannel (e.g. Google), and goal (e.g. fundraising). The more consistent your source code structure, the easier it will be to work with across channels. 
• Define your terms. What is a “campaign”? While the terminology for digital ads is fairly stable on different platforms, once you start trying to harmonize your terminology across channels, things can get messy. Define how you’re using these terms internally. 
• Don’t rely on proprietary platforms. Depending on your CRM or the messaging platforms you use, they may try to do some of this work for you.  They may have embedded custom hierarchies, like “Fund”, “Campaign”,”UTM_channel”. There may be data embedded in the mechanics of the platform that should be within your source codes. Remember: if it’s not in the source code, you may not be able to report on it. 

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Agencies running source code formats for multiple clients run into additional challenges. You’ll want to include things like client ID and agency ID in the source code. This may seem redundant, but you’ll be glad you did it when the client asks you to, say, filter out the messages they’ve sent internally.

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What Owning Your Data Really Means

The reality of running a cross-channel digital marketing program is that you’re using a lot of different systems. Maybe you’ve got an S-tier CRM (like engine9) which has plugins for every major communications and data tool on the planet. Others maybe aren’t so lucky, and are stuck with an aging, legacy CRM, plus an emailer, an SMS platform, maybe a P2P texting app, and somewhere to process your donations. If you’re a mature organization, you may have custom connections shunting data back and forth between these systems multiple times a day, all to ensure your team can target, send, and report on their efforts.

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What happens if you wanted to swap out one piece of that rickety puzzle? We’ve seen organizations spend years trying to do just that. This is 2024. Changing one platform in your digital ecosystem shouldn’t be that hard. 

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Now imagine if all your data existed in an independent warehouse. Imagine if all your outbound messages and incoming donations had embedded source codes, with all the metrics and dimensions you need to run your operations. If each platform is feeding all the data you need into this central database, swapping out one platform no longer means losing access to critical historical data. Want to change email providers? No problem. Just turn on the new system, connect it to the warehouse, and switch off your old emailer. 

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For engine9 clients, it’s that simple. The power of automated data flows, combined with a data warehouse and solid source coding, frees your data strategy from the constraints of proprietary systems. 

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‍Maximum Flexibility, Permanent Robustness ‍

A lot of people think a flexible data strategy takes in-house data experts or expensive consultants building bespoke data connections. engine9’s solution is based on data warehousing, standard connections, and consistent data schema. It is inexpensive, scalable, and most importantly, accurate. We are all about tying data together across communication channels using source codes. It’s a proven, future-proof method that frees you to craft your marketing workflow and reporting strategy to meet your needs, rather than having to work around the limitations of the platforms you rely on. Plug-and-play endlessly with your mix of tools using our robust Marketplace, and use the knowledge we’ve shared above to structure your data like a boss.

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The humble source code lies at the heart of our approach, and for good reason. Chat with us today, and learn how to free your data and future-proof your marketing operations.

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