A Test&Target plug-in is a way to append javascript or HTML to an mbox response without disrupting the T&T campaign content being delivered.. When mboxes make calls to the T&T global edge network, the servers evaluate if that visitor is to be a member of test and then responds accordingly. The plug-in can be included as part of the response.

These plug-ins can be comprised of any snippet of code and you can control them entirely in Test&Target. There are many ways to use the plug-in but let me walk you through a scenario that our SiteCatalyst customers are seeing a lot of value with.  We are going to walk through passing T&T profile data into SiteCatalyst.

I’ve posted previously about how the T&T profile can be used for Display Retargeting here and how the T&T profile can be augmented with Alliant data here. These profiles and their attributes are quite powerful in T&T as you can imagine, but we have learned that they are just as powerful, if not more powerful, to have them available outside of T&T. The Test&Target platform is an open system in that you can import data as well as export data. The T&T plug-in is a great way to get this profile data into other systems including SiteCatalyst  By having these values assigned to e.Vars and s.Props, you can use them to create custom reports, unique to your organization, industry, and business objectives.

For those SiteCatalyst and Test&Target users out there, here is the approach that will allow you to dynamically have Test&Target profiles values sent to SiteCatalyst via a T&T plug-in.

1. Identify what profile values you would like to see in your SiteCatalyst data. For this example, I have chosen to use some Alliant profile variables and a profile variable I use to put visitors into test buckets.  Make sure you have these profiles running and that will make the profiles available as tokens for use in the plug-in.  If you check out the footer of this page or my post on Alliant Data you can see that I make extensive use of profiles by presenting values dynamically onto the page using these tokens.   There is more information on how to setup profiles and what tokens are here.

 

2. Create a T&T html offer that will represent your plug-in.  You can see that this is standard javascript that is often used by implementers of SiteCatalyst.  Here is my offer code: 
   

   <script type=”text/javascript”>
   vars = new Object();

   vars.prop1=”${user.alliant_age}”;
   vars.prop2=”${user.alliant_medianIncome}”;
   vars.prop4=”${user.assignedGroup}”;

   vars.eVar8=”${user.assignedGroup}”;
   vars.eVar9=”${user.alliant_age}”;
   vars.eVar10=”${user.alliant_medianIncome}”;

   s.t(vars);
   </script>

   In this example, my Plug-in is called “Pass Profiles to SiteCatalyst Plug-in” and I have elected to use three s.Props and three e.Vars to collect this profile data in SiteCatalyst.  The profile data assigned to the SiteCatalyst variables are represented as tokens here but will change dynamically when this code executes client side. Here is what it looks like in Test&Target:

   

3. Assign your html offer as a plug-in. The plug-in section is accessible by hovering over the configuration tab in your Test&Target account. Here is a look at my plug-in:
   In this plug-in configuration section we have many options available to us including, the scheduling of the plug-in, limiting it’s execution to a particular mbox or an mbox used to display test content, having it execute based on the campaign or test state (approved vs. all including unapproved campaigns) and whether or not to have it execute in production host groups.  For this example the plug-in will execute when someone sees the mbox “alliant_testandtargeting_demo”.  This mbox is only located on the blog post on using Alliant data which means that the passing of these profiles into SiteCatalyst will only happen when visitors view that post.

   An important thing to note is that these plug-ins execute independently of campaigns and offers so you don’t have to worry about these snippets of code interfering with your campaign offers.

After following these steps, I can see this working in WASP and I can see the data in SiteCatalyst.  Here is a snapshot of my variables being dynamically assigned to the page:

And of course in SiteCatalyst where I am looking at the Alliant Median Age profile values here:

This is just a very generic use of the plug-in but certainly one that can add a lot of value. There are many ways to leverage the plug-in and the sky is truly the limit. Some of our clients use the plug-in to communicate to their email systems or their internal marketing databases while some other clients use it to deploy and take down third party tags to the page. Some of our Insight customers use the plug-in to deploy T&T data directly into Insight and here is an example of that:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

mboxCurrentName=mboxCurrent.getName()
var tu = “http://www.your-site.com/___waseq.img?Log=1″ +
“&tntPage=” + escape(document.location.href) +
“&tntTitle=” + escape(document.title) +
“&tntReferrer=” + escape(document.referrer) +
“&tntCampaignID=${campaign.id}” +
“&tntCampaignName=” + escape(‘${campaign.name}’) +
“&tntRecipeID=${campaign.recipe.id}” +
“&tntRecipeName=” + escape(‘${campaign.recipe.name}’) +
“&tntTrafficType=${campaign.recipe.trafficType}” +
“&tntOfferID=${offer.id}” +
“&tntMbox=” + escape(mboxCurrentName) +
“&tntPCID=${user.pcId}” +
“&tntSessionID=${user.sessionId}” +
“&tntFirstSession=${user.isFirstSession}” +
“&tntPageID=” + mboxFactoryDefault.getPageId() +
“&tntTime=” + new Date().getTime();
var ti = new Image();
ti.src = tu;

</script>

and finally if you wanted to see a quick video on this set up in Test&Target you can check that out here:

For years, many of our clients have been passing data from Third Party Data providers to the T&T Profile as mbox parameters for targeting or personalizing their site. We have seen these clients get a considerable amount of value using these types of data sets. The Product and Engineering teams just made it a lot easier for all of the T&T clients to see similar value. T&T has productized the use of Alliant Data for targeting and segmenting anywhere where you are using the Test&Target technology for personalization or targeting.

Alliant is a leading aggregator of direct-to-consumer buying information from online and offline marketers. Test&Target users can create customer segments from 65 key marketing performance measures such as: recency, frequency, monetary value, product affinity and payment history. Data represents actual consumer behavior summarized at the zip code level and ranked from Very Low to Very High based on recent activity from over 120 million US consumers.

What you see below is LIVE content that is coming directly from T&T using an offer. T&T is profiling your anonymous demographic information and matching that against the Alliant Data. The values in RED are dynamically generated values. All of these Profile attributes and values would be available for use in Test&Target, Test&Target1:1, and Recommendations. Please see your Account Executive to have this enabled in your T&T account.

This first bookmark simply highlights the mboxes in red as seen here on the homepage of JJEsquire:

These mboxes are displaying content from both Test&Target as well as Recommendations.  Since both of these products use the same mbox implementation, the bookmarks work great.  Here is the code to add to your bookmark manager within your browser:

javascript:function%20highlightV25Mboxes()%20{%20%20mboxFactoryDefault.getMboxes().each(%20function(mbox)%20{%20%20%20%20mbox.getDiv().setAttribute('style','border:%202px%20solid%20rgb(255,%200,%200);%20visibility:%20visible;%20display:%20block;');%20%20});}highlightV25Mboxes();

The second bookmark is one that I find myself using much more often.  This bookmark highlights the mboxes differently then the first bookmark.  It presents green overlays over the area that is mboxed, similar to how the Onsite Editor within T&T does.  This bookmark also tells you how many mboxes you have on the page.  You can also click the bookmark a second time and it will remove all mbox highlights.

This bookmark will not work on every website.  It requires that the website uses jQuery which is very common.  The image below shows what it looks like when used on the Test&Target product overview page:

Yes, we eat our own dog food. 

Here is the code that leverages jQuery that you would save to your bookmark manager in your browser:

javascript:%20var%20$alert=jQuery(“<div%20/>”).css({position:”fixed”,top:0,left:0,width:”100%”,fontSize:”30px”,background:”#060″,opacity:.8,color:”#fff”,textAlign:”center”,padding:”10px”,display:”none”,zIndex:999}).addClass(“wolfalert”).appendTo(jQuery(“body”));function%20howlMboxesv1(){if(typeof(mboxFactoryDefault)!=’object’){wolffAlert(“Woof!!!%20There%20are%20no%20mBoxes%20on%20this%20page.”);return;}%20var%20$on=jQuery(“.wolferlay”);if($on.length){jQuery(“.wolferlay”).remove();wolffAlert(“mBoxes%20Removed.”);return;}%20var%20mb_i=0;mboxFactoryDefault.getMboxes().each(function(mbox){mb_i++;var%20$base=jQuery(mbox.getDiv());var%20id_base=$base.attr(“id”);var%20_id=($base.attr(“id”))?$base.attr(“id”)+’-wolferlay’:'wolferlay-’+mb_i;jQuery(“<div%20/>”).attr({id:_id}).addClass(‘wolferlay’).css({position:”absolute”,border:’1px%20solid%20#090′,background:”rgba(0,255,0,.3)”,width:parseInt($base.width()-2),height:parseInt($base.height()-2),top:$base.offset().top,left:$base.offset().left,zIndex:998}).appendTo(jQuery(“body”));if(id_base!=undefined){jQuery(“<div%20/>”).css({background:”rgba(0,0,0,.5)”,color:”#fff”,padding:”2px%205px”,fontFamily:”Calibri,%20Tahoma,%20Arial,%20sans-serif”,fontSize:”12px”,fontWeight:’bold’,zIndex:999}).text(id_base).appendTo(jQuery(“#”+_id))}});if(mb_i>0){if(mb_i==1){wolffAlert(“There%20is%20%201%20mBox%20on%20this%20page.”);}else{wolffAlert(“There%20are%20″+mb_i+”%20mBoxes%20on%20this%20page.”);}}}%20function%20wolffAlert(msg){$alert.text(msg);$alert.fadeIn(250);setTimeout(“fading()”,2000);}%20function%20fading(){jQuery(“.wolfalert”).fadeOut(250);}%20howlMboxesv1();

After you save these bookmarks to your browser you can simply click on them while on any page you suspect of having an mbox on it.

Inserting the search engine query term onto the landing page is something that our customers have been doing for years. In the testing world it is a pretty safe bet to get a winning test result by simply being relevant. Relevance is king when it comes to test designs. Relevance can be accomplished in countless ways including simply reinforcing the keyword or message on the landing page. The simple reinforcement of the query term might not be effective in increasing the given conversion event. This is why you test.

For example, I have seen clients test keyword reinforcement only to find that it is only effective on ‘internal search results’ landing pages versus the ‘home page’ as the landing page. I have also seen very interesting results where rather then using the keyword to reinforce, imagery or navigation based off of the query was most effective.

As for setting the profile, this can be accomplished in two ways. The first is very straightforward as it is passed along to the mbox as seen here:

Simple and easy and now you can immediately take advantage of this profile value for targeting and segmenting. You can even use this value ANYWHERE where you are using T&T for your optimizations. An mbox 5 steps deeper in the site can use it or it can be used on a visit made 10 days later.

The second approach is even easier as you don’t have to bother IT to change your mbox setup. The profile can be set in T&T in the ‘Manage Profile’ section available in the bottom right of the Campaign list page. This Profile Management section can also be accessed by clicking on the configuration tab and then on the Profiles breadcrumb link.

I took the second approach in my example and that setup can be seen here:

The actual use of this profile attribute is the truly dynamic part.  The values are available as Tokens for use in T&T offers.  So, rather then using Javascript in the offer to display the keyword repeater, one can take this approach by using this syntax in the offer:

When this offer is used the token dynamically assigns the value to the anonymous ID of that visitor.

I’ve created a mock up so you can see this live and in action.

1.  Do a Google search with a query that will bring you to the website http://www.testandtargeting.com (testandtargeting mboxes ads, testandtargeting campaigns, testandtargeting ads, and The Target in Test&Target work well). Here is the link to a search of testandtargeting ads: “testandtargeting ads Google Search”

2.  Click through on the URL bringing you to my landing page.

3. You have the keyword repeater using the above offer via the profile!

As an added Bonus check out how this Profile Attribute value can be used in your Display Optimizations.  If you have Flash CS5 then you can ‘flashbox’ your flash files including the ones used in display.  This is done via the Test&Target extension as seen here:

Once you’ve configured your flash asset for targeting, personalization and of course testing, you can simply set up the test design in Test&Target using a Display campaign as seen here:

Check out the offer assigned to Experience A as it is using the Token to present the Profile Value in a Display Ad.

To see this live and action visit this URL and check out the bottom right Ad above the fold:  http://www.miacosa.com/display/ (notice it is a separate URL and there are NO mboxes on this page).

If you didn’t follow the steps above to see the keyword repeater you would see this:

If you did follow the steps above you would see the keyword you used in the Google search as seen here:

If you want to read more about using the Test&Target extension in Flash Professional CS5 I suggest this great post.

Here is a quick video highlighting these examples live:

Tools used to accomplish this:
Adobe Dreamweaver – placing mbox on testandtargeting.com for keyword repeater on landing page
Adobe Test&Target – setting up the profile and the campaign that drives the dynamically generated content on the landing page and in the display ad
Adobe Flash CS5 – insertion of the T&T flashbox for use in display media
Adobe Captivate – to record the video demo

As you can see the one constant is the mboxes themselves. Every Experience that is part of your Test or Campaign design will have the same mboxes.  In this example we have two mboxes working together for a particular Experience and there is no limit to the number of mboxes that can be used in an Experience.  Using more then one mbox for a Campaign is a very popular approach among users of T&T as it allows you to run your optimizations across different pages and mediums such as email and display.