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Emily Nash

By: Emily Nash on December 14th, 2016

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These Aren't Your Mother's Milk and Cookies

Content, Social & Digital Marketing | Marketing Automation | Personalization

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article

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Personalization for Marketing Automation is the technical aspect of identifying a user and attributing all their behaviors to them along a digital footprint. It's all the behind the scenes details that involves cookies and JavaScript snippets that work to gather information that can then begin to tell a story about the user. This helps an organization to deliver the right content, at the right time, with the right tone and feel. Since these cookies offer personalized experiences for the user - they fill out a submission form with all of our information for example - people tend to be okay when a website uses them. (Ask a millenial and they practically expect cookies to be operating behind every web domain!).  

The technical aspect starts with a cookie that is placed onto your browser and contains various information regarding your specific website visits. Cookies help with identifying the user, they can pre-populate a form for the association member, they can trigger re-targeting ads, and most importantly, they can track a conversion event. 

There are two types of cookies, temporary and permanent cookies. A temporary, or session cookie, may only track the user while they are on the website; a shopping cart for example. A permanent cookie, or persistant, cookie builds a deeper understanding of the user in your Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) over time and tracks all the activity within the browser. A browser is your Firefox, Google Chrome, and in some instances, Internet Explorer. 

Next, is the action of placing a cookie on your computer, which is done through a JavaScript snippet. To break it down, JavaScript is one of three languages that helps build a web page. JavaScipt is the language that informs an interactive element of a website. Once it is generated through your Marketing Automation Platform, it is placed at the bottom of each webpage or the footer. It is similar to Google Analytics in that it tracks activity on a webpage, but the JavaScript goes further into tracking information specific to a user and Google Analytics only tracks web traffic in general.

The journey of a cookies goes something like this: The user lands on a web page, the browser gets the cookie, the MAP reads the cookie, then identifies the contact and displays custom content for that user. Now, let's take you through a journey in the life of a script. A user visits a web page, this triggers the JavaScript to run, the JavaScript identifies the user, the script sends the web activity back to the MAP in real-time.

All this behinds the scenes activity is the backbone of what goes into a Marketing Automation Platform in making it work. It creates the data-rich user profiles and works in real-time. Now that you understand the basics and how to articulate what you are trying to do, you are on your way to great personalization.

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About Emily Nash

With a unique background in start-ups-to-studios, and consulting-to-corporate settings, Emily specializes in solving for unknowns, pioneering new services, and collaborating with marketers and strategists. In her community, she served on the board of American Institute for Graphic Arts as their Communications Director to help promote networking and mentorship opportunities for area designers and creatives. She’s also a co-producer for Rethink Association, a podcast for associations.