Sometimes finding anything quickly can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. We're in a constant information overload. As a marketer, you may be buried under a load of content and sometimes it's hard to keep it all straight. This is where search tags come in. Search tags act as digital shortcuts, helping categorize and label your assets so you can easily navigate a potentially vast amount of information. In this post we'll look at the benefits of using search tags and how to configure and use them on assets in Customer Intelligence 360.   Why Use Search Tags?   Tagging an object enables you to associate it with a known value so you can find it easier. This is a pretty simple concept. I like to think of it as associating an asset with a category, grouping them together.   Consider the three items below. We have a shirt, a tie, and a dress. I'll use the search tag "Clothes" to categorize these three objects.   Figure 1    Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Search tags also enable you to create multiple associations so you can have one object that is a member of multiple tag groups. So, each of these images are not only associated with the search tag "Clothes", but the first two now also have a search tag of "Ties" and the third has a search tag of "Dresses."   Figure 2    Customer Intelligence 360 takes all those search tags you've created and lists them in a global content management system (Figure 3). Here, you'll find a list of all search tags created in your tenant and the number of items associated with that search tag.   Figure 3    Creating a Search Tag   A search tag can be created independently from an object in the global settings pictured above, or it can be created inside an object. To create an independent search tag, click New Tag (Figure 3) and name your tag. After clicking Save, your new tag should appear in your global search tags list.   This tag can now be associated with an asset. Navigate to Assets and select the asset you like your new search tag to be associated with. Conveniently, when you open any asset, it automatically opens to the asset's properties page. This is where you will add your tag (Figure 4).   Figure 4    To add an existing tag, click View all Tags. A list of every existing tag appears (Figure 5). You can choose as many existing tags as you would like to associate with this asset.    Figure 5    Alternatively, you can add a new tag directly in the object by simply typing the new tag in the Add or search tag field and clicking Add to list (Figure 4). This adds that tag to the asset and also adds the new tag to your tag list in General Settings. An asterisk will appear next to the tag name indicating that this is a new tag in the global tag cloud.   Using Your Tags   Now that you've created your search tags, they can be used to filter and find your assets. On the Assets main page, make sure the Browse folders and filter items button is activated. Select the folder you would like to filter, and click the Filters tab. There you'll see a section titled Tags with a list of your tags available in that folder. Select the tag you would like to filter to. The assets associated with that tag in that folder will automatically appear (Figure 6).   Figure 6    For more information about search tags, including best practices and reconciling tags see the course titled Managing Users, Settings, Content Delivery, and REST APIs in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 in the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription or the System Configuration section of Configuring SAS Customer Intelligence 360 in the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

  In my July post, I covered using Snowy to view events in SAS Customer Intelligence 360. If you didn't catch that post, you can find it here. We discussed adding the Snowy extension, creating your event, and viewing the event in Snowy using event streaming configurations. The event streaming tab listed all raw events and events configured in Customer Intelligence 360. Before you can use the Event Streaming tab, you need to configure it in Snowy's settings with the following information:   External API gateway address Tenant ID Client Secret   This information can be accessed under Access Points in Customer Intelligence 360 General Settings.   But wait...what's an Access Point? Where do I find that information? Do I have to set up this Access Point?   In this post, I'll answer these questions and more. We'll walk through the different types of access points, which access point you'll use for Snowy, how to set up that access point and how to configure event streaming.   Let's Talk About Access Points   Customer Intelligence 360 can integrate with external applications using an access point. An access point is configuration data defined in the Customer Intelligence 360 user interface that enables the bidirectional transfer of data between Customer Intelligence 360 and users or on-premises systems via a permanent secure connection.   There are four types of access points that can be configured in Customer Intelligence 360:   The General Access Point enables you to receive events and data from SAS Customer Intelligence 360. This access point, along with a general agent, can be used to connect to on-premises data, content management systems, and installations of SAS Real-Time Decision Manager or SAS Event Stream Processing. The Direct Access Point, along with the direct marketing agent, are used in direct marketing tasks to integrate with on-premises marketing channels. The Optimize Access Point, along with the Optimize agent, integrates on-premises customer data and Customer Intelligence 360 in order to optimize direct marketing campaigns within specified constraints. Finally, the Diagnostics Access Point and its agent are used to diagnose issues with Customer Intelligence 360 events. The diagnostics agent can filter by a given ID type and value to identify problems with events generated in Customer Intelligence 360. It can help ensure that the intended and the actual behavior of the events match.   The diagnostics access point is the access point to use when checking events in Snowy. There are a few reasons for this:   The diagnostic access point is intended for troubleshooting and monitoring events The diagnostic access point allows you to filter by identity type instead of event type. This is extremely useful when having to search through multiple identities to find the event matching the identity you are looking for.   Creating the Diagnostics Access Point   To begin creating a diagnostics access point, navigate to General Settings on the left side bar of the Customer Intelligence 360 home page, find Access Points in the External Access subheading, and select New diagnostics access point (Figure 1).   Figure 1    Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   To configure the access point simply:   Enter a name Click Add to add the credentials And set the access point to Active (Figure 2)    Figure 2    Click Done and you've created your access point! Now let's go to Snowy and add the new tenant configuration!   Event Stream Configurations   First, go to the Settings page of the Snowy Extension. If you haven't added the Snowy extension yet, visit my July post.   Once installed, the Snowy plug-in can be viewed on the CI360 tab of the browser developer tools (Figure 3).    Figure 3    On the Settings tab, you'll enter the External API gateway address, Tenant ID, and Client Secret.   To access the External API gateway address, navigate back to Access Points in General Settings of Customer Intelligence 360. The External API gateway address can be found there (Figure 4).   Figure 4    Next, click on the Access Point you created earlier. That's where you will find the Tenant ID and Client Secret (Figure 5).   Figure 5    After all information has been filled in, click the green button that says Activate this tenant. Now you're ready to view events! As stated earlier, to view events configured in Customer Intelligence 360 use the Event Stream tab. When you're there, make sure to click the Start button and select your filter condition (Figure 6).   Figure 6    For more information about access points, agents and connectors, see the course titled Using Agents and Connectors with SAS Customer Intelligence 360 in the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription. Specifically, to see a demonstration of a diagnostics access point and agent see the video titled Demo: Configuring and using a Diagnostic Agent in that course. For an overview of the snowy plugin see the course titled Website Data Collection and Configuration in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and for more information about creating events see the course titled SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Fundamentals.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Hello everyone!   SAS Education and SAS Presales Support are happy to announce a new course titled SAS 360 Match Essentials!   This course prepares partners and customers to use SAS 360 Match and provides comprehensive training on Ad Tech essentials, focusing on mastering the User Interface (UI) and its various components. Topics include:    UI Overview UI: Admin UI: Tiers UI: Campaigns & Flights  UI: Creatives UI: BI Reports UI: Operational Reports UI: Tagging Overview UI: Partners/Exchange Manager UI: Sales Workflow   Use the link below to access the SAS Customer Intelligence Subscription! ... View more

Hello everyone!   SAS Education and SAS Presales Support are happy to announce a new course titled SAS 360 Match Essentials!   This course prepares partners and customers to use SAS 360 Match and provides comprehensive training on Ad Tech essentials, focusing on mastering the User Interface (UI) and its various components. Topics include:    UI Overview UI: Admin UI: Tiers UI: Campaigns & Flights  UI: Creatives UI: BI Reports UI: Operational Reports UI: Tagging Overview UI: Partners/Exchange Manager UI: Sales Workflow   Use the link below to access the SAS Customer Intelligence Subscription!   SAS Customer Intelligence Learning Subscription for Customers ... View more

Customer Intelligence 360 provides you with a Job Information page so you can view information about submitted import and batch process jobs as well as information about executed email, mobile bulk push notification tasks, Google Ad and Facebook Audience tasks and Bulk Custom Tasks. In this post, I’ll walk you through the Job Information page and provide an overview of its key features.   To access the Job Information page, click View jobs information on the top menu bar in your tasks list.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Task Execution   The Task Execution tab displays the progress, status, total recipients, and total recipients processed, completed, failed, and skipped for each executed task. By default, the most recently executed task is displayed at the top and information is updated every 15 minutes. Click the task to view more information about your task and view its progress.    Figure 1   Figure 1 shows a one-time bulk email task. 4250 emails were processed, 4,200 of these emails were completed, and 50 were skipped. By clicking the information icon in the skipped column the number of emails skipped and the reason for each skip is provided.  You can also click View details (Figure 2) at the top to View details about the task and open the task by clicking View.   Figure 2   Click the ellipses on each column to hide the column or click Manage columns to add or remove columns (Figure 3). The columns you see will be different based on the task type you are viewing.   Figure 3   Figure 4 is a triggered email task. All information for a triggered email task is aggregated by day. When you click to view the details on a triggered email task, information for every day that the task is triggered is listed.   Figure 4   Figure 5 is a Google Ads Task set as a recurrence. If a task is scheduled as a recurrence, it'll list each occurrence, with the most recent one appearing at the top.   Figure 5   Processes and Migrated Campaigns   The Processes tab (Figure 6) lists submitted import and batch process jobs. It provides information such as who submitted the job, job type, total items, date submitted, and status. Click View Details to view a summary of the job and click download summary in the details window to download it.   Figure 6   Finally, the Migrated Campaigns tab (Figure 7) shows the status of campaigns being migrated from CI6 and the progress of ongoing migration jobs. It provides information such as status, date submitted, who it was submitted by and date completed. Click View details to see more information about the campaign including all details about each item included and whether or not each item was converted.   Figure 7   For more information, visit the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Users Guide, Administration Guide and Learning Subscription pages below and be on the lookout for a new demo coming soon on the Job Information Monitor in the course SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Resources and Guides.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Snowy is a field developed, multi-functional browser extension created by SAS's own Sudheesh Warrier that enables administrators to troubleshoot Customer Intelligence 360 network traffic in both directions. You can use this extension to easily search for form data such as identity events or any other event type or input field.   A few features of this plugin include:   Tracking all POST requests initiated by SAS Customer Intelligence 360 on any website. Tracking all Form data from your request in an easy-to-read format. Search and filter requests based on form data or events. Option to sort on any column. Option to enable and disable per website.   In this post, I'll provide you with an example of how this plugin works using an Internal Search Event in SAS Customer Intelligence 360.   Origins   I reached out to Sudheesh to find out the reasoning behind the name Snowy. He explained that before Snowy, he had written a small desktop plugin to analyze General Agent Logs called Tintin named after the protagonist character from one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, The Adventures of Tintin, created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi. In the comic series, Snowy was Tintin's white fox terrier companion which made for a fitting name next to it's plugin counterpart. Sudheesh said he felt the names of these characters fit for these plugins as they both have curious minds and continue to seek out what is happening around them.   As a comic nerd, I have to applaud Sudheesh's creativity in the determination of these names.   Adding the Snowy Extension   The first thing you'll need to do is add the Snowy extension to your browser. Use this link and follow the simple installation instructions.   https://github.com/sassoftware/ci360-extensions/tree/main/code/snowy   Once installed, the Snowy plug-in can be viewed on the Customer Intelligence 360 tab of the browser developer tools (Figure 1).    Figure 1   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   As an example, I created a new Internal Search Event based on a form submit for the SAS Store website.    Figure 2    Creating an Internal Search Event   I used Form Submit Custom Event and selected the Search Products box at the top of the site. The name of the form is populated in the selection box at the bottom of the interface (Figure 2).   In Event Details I selected Any Page from the drop-down menu because the search box appears on every page of the site (Figure 3).    Figure 3    Next, I defined the search name associated with this search event and defined the Field ID (woocommerce-product-search-field) and Field name (s). To check these I used the inspection window on the SAS Store website and did a search. In the payload of the submit event I found the product-search-field ID and name (Figure 4).   Figure 4    I also chose to identify the number of search results returned from the next page load and used a page element as the identifier.   Figure 5    I captured the number of search results here I had to select the string, "Showing all 8 results". To get the numeric value, I changed the value for the Return field to Between, entered "all" in the From field, and results  in the To field. This returns the number of results embedded in the string (Figure 5).   Finally, I published the event.   Viewing Events in Snowy   There are two ways to view events in Snowy. Use the Network tab to view all raw events. These are events automatically created and are not configured in Customer Intelligence 360. You only need your site to be tagged to view these raw events in the Network tab (Figure 6).   Figure 6    The second way to view events is in the Event Stream tab. This tab will show all raw events and events configured in Customer Intelligence 360. To view anything in this tab you will need to add the following information about your tenant.   External API gateway address Tenant ID Client Secret   These can all be accessed under Access Points in Customer Intelligence 360 General Settings and then added to the Settings tab of Snowy (Figure 7).    Figure 7    Finally I used Snowy to check that my new Internal Search Event is working correctly. I used the Event Stream tab, began a network stream and performed another search. Snowy displayed a formatted list of events collected by the tag.   The first event was a change event created when I typed the search term in the search field (Figure 8).   Figure 8    After performing the search a few more events appeared. This included the EDU Internal Search Event I previously configured confirming the event is working properly. The list also includes a submit event, unload event and a Page View Event for viewing the new search page.    Figure 9    Key attributes like Datahub ID, timestamp, Session Id and Visitor ID are listed in the table. These attributes can then be used to filter and search these events. (Figure 9).   Please be aware that Snowy is a field developed plugin with no formal support mechanism from SAS.   For more information about creating events in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and using Snowy visit the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription page below. Specifically for an overview of the snowy plugin see the course titled Website Data Collection and Configuration in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and for more information about creating Events see the course titled SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Fundamentals.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence Learning Subscription       Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

In my previous posts, I provided insight into different features available in SAS 360 Email and how, with a simple drag and drop UI, you can easily create any email for your organization. You can create triggered emails like password change notifications and purchase notifications, or bulk emails like newsletters. Sometimes though, you need a little motivation to get started. So I scoured the internet in search of ideas for great looking email newsletters and re-created those ideas in SAS 360 Email. In this post, I'll share two sample newsletter templates and how to create each.     Elegant and Modern   This first one was described as elegant and modern by it's simple and clean look. So let's break down the components of this email.   The welcome block at the very top is a text element. The name of your organization or the name of the newsletter can replace the Welcome.   Font: Georgia, white, size 18; Background: Black; Top and Bottom Spacing: 15; Left and Right Spacing: 30   The next element is an image.   Top and Bottom Spacing: 0; Left and Right Spacing: 0; Width: 600; Height: 181   Below the picture are two more text elements. One containing the title of your main article...   Font: Georgia, black, size 44; Alignment: Center; Top and Bottom Spacing: 10; Left and Right Spacing: 30   ...and below it a snippet of the article.   Font: Georgia, black, size 14; Alignment: Center; Top and Bottom Spacing: 10; Left and Right Spacing: 30   Below the article is a button element. This button element will contain a link to the rest of the article or to the newsletter itself.   Alignment: Center; Font: Georgia, black, size 20; Button Color: White; Width: 240; Height: 20 Top and Bottom Spacing: 25; Left and Right Spacing: 0; Border: Solid; Corner Radius: 0   Next I've used a horizontal line element to separate the two articles.   Width 50%; Thickness: 2, Style: Solid; Color: BBBBBB; Top Spacing: 0 Bottom Spacing: 5; Left and Right Spacing: 20   Finally below the horizontal line is a multiple columns element that includes 2 columns, each column at 50%. the left side column includes two more text blocks, one for title...   Font: Georgia, black, size 28; Alignment: Center; Top and Bottom Spacing: 5; Left and Right Spacing: 7   ...and the other for the article text.   Font: Georgia, black, size 14; Alignment: Left; Top and Bottom Spacing: 5; Left Spacing: 7,  Right Spacing: 0   Simple Green   This next one is a simple layout using a large picture at the top and allowing for a whole article or a small snippet of a larger article to be included. To the left of the article, a list of all other newsletter contents can be included. This template assumes that the rest of your newsletter is online and can be accessed by links within the email.   Font: Trebuchet MS   The top and bottom includes a horizontal line element.   Width 100%; Thickness: 2, Style: Solid; Color: #688992; Top Spacing: 20 Bottom Spacing: 10; Left and Right Spacing: 20   Below the horizontal line is a text block with the date and Issue number   Font Size: 13 ; Top Spacing: 0 Bottom Spacing: 20; Left and Right Spacing: 30; Text alignment: Left   Next is another text element for the title of your newsletter. Here we've just included a simple title Monthly Newsletter.   Font Size: 36 Bold and Italic; Color: #688992; Top Spacing: 10 Bottom Spacing: 0; Left and Right Spacing: 30; Text alignment: Left   Below the title is a text element for a subtitle.   Font Size: 16 Italic; Top Spacing: 0 Bottom Spacing: 10; Left and Right Spacing: 30; Text alignment: Left   Next is an image element.   Top and Bottom Spacing: 0; Left and Right Spacing: 0; Width: 600; Height: 375   The article snippet and Inside this Issue section is a Multiple columns element with two columns.   Column 1: 35%; Column 2: 65%; Horizonal: 35; Top and Bottom Spacing: 27   The column on the left includes a horizonal line element on the top and bottom...   Width 100%; Thickness: 2, Style: Solid; Color: #688992; Top Spacing: 20 Bottom Spacing: 15; Left and Right Spacing: 20   ...and two text elements. The first is as follows:   Font Size: 16; Color: #688992; Top Spacing: 5 Bottom Spacing: 5; Left Spacing: 20; Right Spacing: 7; Text alignment: Left   Text element below that includes a link to other newsletter articles.   Font Size: 12; Top Spacing: 5 Bottom Spacing: 5; Left Spacing: 20; Right Spacing: 7; Text alignment: Left   The column on the right contains three rows all with text elements. The article title is as follows:   Font Size: 28; Color: #688992 Top Spacing: 5 Bottom Spacing: 5; Left Spacing: 7; Right Spacing: 7; Text alignment: Left   The author text block changes back to black, font size 16 and the article snippet below that is font size 13.   These are just two examples of the many things you can do with SAS 360 Email. What other templates would you like to see?   For more information about other easy to use Email features visit the SAS Customer Intelligence 360, Users Guide, Administration Guide and Learning Subscription pages below.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Picture this: You've created the perfect new company logo. It's beautiful! The new logo along with its slogan perfectly exemplifies the core of your company. You can't wait to show it to the world! But wait…this means you need to change every single email layout you've created in Customer Intelligence 360. This could take forever!   No it won't, because you are utilizing dynamic assets!   Wait…you're not using dynamic assets?   That's ok! In this post, I'll walk you through how to use it!   What is a Dynamic Asset?   Dynamic assets are elements from the asset library that are included in your email as a reference instead of a copy. This means that any time a change is made to a dynamic asset, that change is also reflected in all other email tasks that use this dynamic asset.   Pretty cool huh?   Let's walk through an example...   Here, I have a draft of an email layout (Figure 1).   Figure 1    Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   I need to add my standard header for this email. To do so, I'll drag and drop a dynamic asset content element onto my layout and select my email header from the asset library (Figure 2). Easy as that!   Figure 2    Now, let’s update this header. I'll show you two ways to make changes to your dynamic asset; within the email layout and the asset library.   Making Changes in the Email Layout   In the dynamic asset menu, I'll click Edit dynamic asset. The window that appears indicates that this dynamic asset is used in three tasks and that a new version of the asset will be created (Figure 3). That new version will automatically be used in all tasks using this asset. Here, I can select whether I want to edit the asset in the Layout Manager or using the HTML editor. For this example, I'll edit this in the Layout Manager.   Figure 3    I'd like to change the image in my header, so I'll simply click the image and select a new image from the asset library. When I save the dynamic asset two things happen.   A new version of the dynamic asset is saved in the asset repository. This means that my old version still exists so I can revert to it if I need to. Every other email task that uses this dynamic asset is also updated.   Making Changes in the Asset Library   The second way that I can make changes to a dynamic asset is through the asset library. This time instead of changing the asset itself, I'll add a completely new version of the asset. On the Versions tab of my asset, I'll click Add Version and navigate to the image saved on my computer (Figure 4). And just like that, a new version of my asset appears and all other email tasks using this dynamic asset will be updated.     For more information about using dynamic assets and other easy to use Email features visit the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription page below.   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Ever wish that the "easy button" was actually a practical tool for productivity? Just by the click of a button your everyday tasks would be done, followed by a joyful voice replying, "That was easy!"   Ok, maybe life isn't as simple as that. But if we need to live in a world without an easy button, at least give us something that comes at a close second.   Continuing my journey in educating the masses on SAS Customer Intelligence 360, I have had the opportunity to dive into the incredible SAS 360 Email. SAS 360 Email provides you with an easy to use, drag and drop interface, allowing you to create the perfect email without ever needing to know a stitch of HTML. Unlike our friend the "easy button," these capabilities make SAS 360 Email the ultimate practical tool for productivity! In this entry, I'll walk you through an email I created (Figure 7) using nothing but the drag and drop capabilities of the Layout Manager.   Default Opt-Out Text   Figure 1 Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   When you first access the Layout Manager, you'll notice an Opt-Out Text element (Figure 1) has already been added to your layout. To meet legal requirements for email marketing, the Layout Manager inserts default opt-out text in your email content by including an Opt-Out Text element in the layout. This Opt-Out Text element includes a merge tag and directs email recipients to a predefined URL defined during your implementation of SAS Customer Intelligence 360. The opt-out out text settings on the right side of the screen may be used to personalize this text element even further.   Text Element    Figure 2   First, I added a text element to my email with the offer of 15% off at login (Figure 2). Just like every content element, I added the Text element by dragging and dropping it onto my layout. Then I added the text "Login Now | Start Saving with 15% off your hotel reservation!"         Next, I used the Text Settings to add a link to the Login Now text, changed the background color of my text block, changed the font color to white, and center-aligned the text.   Image Element   There are two ways of adding images to your email using an image content element; adding an image from the asset library or as a URL (Figure 3). The first room service image and the Senior Discount Offer image were added from the asset library and the SAS Hotel logo was added as a URL. I used the image settings to add the alternative text or descriptive label for each image as well as a call-to-action link for the Senior Discount offer. I’ll left the default settings for alignment, border, background and spacing, but these settings could also be configured using the image settings menu.       Figure 3   Button Element    Figure 4     I used a button element to add a button as a link to the SAS Hotel Reservation page. I used the button settings to add the button text, (Make a Reservation), and added a call-to-action link that will lead the customer to the SAS Hotel Accommodations page. In the Button Design Settings, I changed the button font to Avenir Next, the font size to 18, made the button color deep yellow, the font color white, and the background color to match the text element.   Below that, I changed the top and bottom spacing to 20 and rounded the button more by changing the corner radius to 20 (Figure 5).    Figure 5     View-on-Web Text     Figure 6     Finally, I added a View-on-Web text element. This link provides your customer with the ability to view the email in their browser. Default text is added with a link, but the default text can be easily changed. I used the View-on-Web Text settings to match the text and background color with the text block.   To view the merge tag used in this element I clicked link on the right-side menu. There, I can see my display text, link type, and the default merge tag used to open the email in a browser. I have the option of changing the protocol and URL as needed, or I can change the link type to phone and include a phone number (change back to URL).   And Voila!   I have completed my email layout without using a hint of HTML!    Figure 7   Would you like to learn more? Visit the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription page below and be on the lookout for some exciting updates to the SAS 360 Email course coming soon!   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers ... View more

Hello everyone!   SAS Education has released a brand-new course on SAS 360 Audiences! This course covers the following:   Overview of SAS 360 Audiences  Creating an Audience Connector  Configuring Audience Connections  Deleting Audience Connections  Configuring Audience Sources  Creating an Audience Source  Creating an Audience  Audience Statuses  Using an Audience in a Task  Adding a Personalization Variable in a Creative to be used by an Audience  Using an Audience in a Mobile Push Notification Task  ... View more

Path Analysis is one of the many statistical tools used to show the relationships between data sets. It connects the dots between variables, and sheds light on how customers move along pathways. In my last post, I stressed the value in not only using SAS solutions like Customer Intelligence 360 to collect data, but to take that data to the next level using tools like SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Studio, and SAS Visual Analytics.   In my recent course I looked at data collected from SAS 360 Discover and how that data can be manipulated using both SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Studio. I then use these data sets to create reporting objects in SAS Visual Analytics like a Path Analysis (Figure 1) and Decision Tree. In this post, I'll focus on the process I used to manipulate my data in SAS Enterprise Guide to ready it for a Path Analysis.   Figure 1   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Key Points   There are a few key points you should know before starting this process.   This process will involve appending tables. This simply means that we will concatenate the tables resulting in a data set containing every row and variable in all input tables. In order to append tables, every input table must have the same columns, so some initial querying may be needed prior to the append. There are a few attributes you will need to create the Path Analysis later. These are identity_id, session_id, an activity like a page view or a traffic source, the time stamp for each activity, and an activity code like TS for traffic source or PV for page view. This code categorizes the activities and can be used to filter data later when creating the path analysis.   Querying the Data   As stated, you may need to query data and create new columns for each input data set before appending them. This can all be done using a simple query task. I'll demonstrate this step using the VISIT_DETAILS table.   There are five columns needed from the VISIT_DETAILS table (Figure 2).                                                                                   Figure 2   Identity_id and session_id already exist in the input tables so those can easily be dragged and dropped into the query. The last three columns, Time Stamp, Code, and Activity, are computed columns. Here's how to create those columns.   Time Stamp   The Time Stamp will always be the dttm column of the input table. In the case of the VISIT_DETAILS table that column is visit_dttm. Create the computed column and use advanced expression to record the visit_dttm column in the computed column whenever a visit is present, like in Figure 3. The t1 represents the input table.                                                       Figure 3   Activity   The Activity column works the same way. In the case of the VISIT_DETAILS table, create another computed column with an advanced expression to record the origination_type_nm when it is present (as in Figure 4). This will pull the traffic source associated with the visit.                                       Figure 4   Code   The Code column will identify the category in which the identified activity falls in. As stated earlier, this code can be used in the creation of the path analysis as a filter. In the case of the VISIT_DETAILS table we'll use the code of TS to stand for Traffic Source. The expression is pictured in Figure 5. This is a Case expression stating when the origination_type_nm exists then the column will be populated with TS.                                Figure 5   Appending Tables   At this point all tables are queried. It's important to note that the CUSTOM_EVENTS table holds all events considered to be site conversions, so you may want to filter that table to show only site conversions. After doing that, your process flow may look something like Figure 6.    Figure 6   You'll use the Append Task to append all your tables, by simply opening the Task, selecting all your tables, and clicking Run. In the end you'll have one table including all your input tables, ready to be transformed into a Path Analysis.                                                                                                      Figure 7   If you would like to learn more about Customer Intelligence 360 data tables and creating reports, please visit any of these sites below:   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide  Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers   Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

I've been with SAS Education for a little over a year and half (how time flies) and in that short amount of time I have learned so much about Customer Intelligence 360. I feel honored to be able to bring this solution to customers and show them all the incredible things it can do. It's hard to believe though, that I've only scratched the surface and that there are some incredibly talented and intelligent people working on this solution every day who know it like the back of their hand. I look forward to continuing to learn from them.   With all that said, I'd like to use this blog to continue to bring you little snippets of some exciting things that I have learned along my journey (or at least exciting to me). Some of it may be brand new to you and some of it you may read and say, "of course it does that!" Either way, I hope you can take at least a little bit of information away.   One of the most exciting things I have been doing recently is not only continuing to learn how to use Customer Intelligence 360, but also learning how it can be used along-side other SAS solutions! One of those solutions being SAS Enterprise Guide. So, in this blog I will cover how you can use SAS Enterprise Guide to join Customer Intelligence 360 data with offline data using identity tables. The identity information stored in the identity tables enables you to link data in your base tables and detail tables to offline data that you would like to include in your analysis. In this example, we'll walk through this process using the SESSION_DETAILS table, the IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTES table and the IDENTITY_MAP table to eventually match offline user identification information with user identification values stored in Customer Intelligence 360.   Let's jump into it!   Step 1: Join the SESSION_DETAILS table to the IDENTITY_MAP table and identify the active identity id (Figure 1).   A few things to remember: The SESSION_DETAILS table contains an identity_id and the IDENTITY_MAP table contains the source_identity_id and the target_identity_id. Data will only appear in the IDENTITY_MAP table if an unknown user becomes a known user. When the target_identity_id is identified, the source_identity_id becomes inactive.     Figure 1 There are two sub-steps to this first step.     Figure 2 First, use a left join to join the SESSION_DETAILS table with the IDENTITY_MAP table using the identity_id and the source_identity_id. The left join ensures that the data from the SESSION_DETAILS table persists even if it does not have a match with the source_identity_id. (Figure 2) Create a new calculated column that will identify the active identity id using the following coalesce function: Active identity id = (coalesce(IDENTITY_MAP.target_identity_id, SESSION_DETAILS.identity_id)) This function states that the active identity id is the target_identity_id from the IDENTITY_MAP table if the target_identity_id is present, otherwise the active identity id is the identity_id from the SESSION_DETAILS table.   After performing this first step, you'll have a new table with an active_identity_id column.   Step 2: Join the new table with the IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTES table to obtain the user_identifier_value column, like a login ID, from the IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTES table. (Figure 3)    Figure 3   To join the two tables, use the new active_identity_id column and the identity_id column in the IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTES table to do a left join. The left join will retain the session information for unidentified visitors and collect the information for the identified visitors. (Figure 4)    Figure 4   The new table now contains the user_identifier_value. Step 3: Use the USER_IDENTIFIER_VAL column in the new table, to match to the appropriate column in the offline data. (Figure 5)   Figure 5   Remember, this example used the SESSION_DETAILS table, but you can use this same approach with any of the other detail or base tables, as long as you have the identity_id needed to link to your identity tables.   If you would like to learn more about SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and UDM Tables please visit any one of these sites below: Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers ... View more

  William Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?”   Well, in a time of vast technological advancement, lies a vivid tapestry that defines who we are in the virtual space. It’s in this space, that marketers now have the opportunity to expand their horizons and reach customers at a level in which Mr. Shakespeare himself could have never imagined. And it’s here where Customer Intelligence 360 plays one of its many leading roles in data collection.   What’s the Story?   Let’s look at the process for a typical customer visit (Figure 1).   A customer uses a laptop to access a website.   Level 1: Because this is their first time accessing the site, the user is anonymous, so they are assigned an identity_id. Level 2: Because this is their first time accessing the site using their laptop, a cookie is set in their browser, and they are also assigned a visitor_id. Level 3: When the customer accesses the website, a session begins, and a session_id is created. Their session will continue as long as the maximum session duration and session inactivity limits do not time out. Level 4: When a session begins, a visit also begins, and a visit_ID is created (not to be confused with the visitOR_id). Level 5: During the customer’s visit, they may visit multiple pages and activate multiple events, including page loads, clicks, and filling out forms.   Figure 1   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   What’s in an… Identity ID?   Well… many things, but we’re going to focus on visits and sessions. During this customer visit, Customer Intelligence 360 is collecting data in data tables and connecting each table using the ID’s mentioned above. Let’s look at how Customer Intelligence 360 collects the data and brings it all together.   Pages (Figure 2)   As stated, when a customer visits pages on a website, they perform many different activities, including clicking links, downloading documents, filling out forms, etc. When a customer visits a page on a website, a detail_id is created and stored in the Page Details tables as well as in all associated event tables for this customer visit. The events performed in one page can now all be linked together using this detail_id.     Figure 2   Visits (Figure 3)   A visit is an entry into a website from an external source. When a customer visits a website from an external source a visit_id is formed in the Visit Details table. This visit_id will be included in the Page Details tables and event tables with its associated detail_id and events. A visit is now linked with its pages and events.      Figure 3   Sessions (Figure 4)   A session is a period of activity that begins when a visitor first accesses a website and ends when the visitor closes the browser, the session inactivity duration is exceeded, or the maximum duration is exceeded. The session can have multiple visits, pages, and events. When a session begins, a session_id is created. This session_id is stored in all other corresponding tables to link all visits, pages, and events to one session.      Figure 4   Bringing it all together   Let’s quickly review: Detail_id’s are created for pages and these detail_id’s are included in all associated event tables to link the events with their pages. Visit_id’s are created for every visit and are included in the Page Detail tables and Event Detail tables with their associated detail_id’s and events. Session_id’s are created for every session and are included in all Detail tables to link all events, pages and visits to their session. Now, we need to link the anonymous customer to all these IDs. That’s where the identity_id comes in. As stated earlier, the identity_id is created first for the customer. This identity_id will be used in every Detail table to connect all activities with the anonymous customer.   But let’s take it a step further   The customer decides to visit the same website again using their tablet. Because this is their first time accessing this site on this device, the user remains anonymous and receives a new identity_id and visitor_id. They create a login ID and password. When a user identification definition in Customer Intelligence 360 is configured to extract that new login ID, the login ID is captured and is connected with the new identity_id and visitor_id. The customer now has two identity_ids, one on their laptop and one on their tablet. The customer accesses the site using their laptop again. They are recognized by their original identity_id because of the cookie set on their laptop. They log in and the identity_id associated with their login ID becomes their primary identity_id and the user is no longer anonymous on their laptop. This identity_id will be used to tie all their activities, past and future, together. If you would like to learn more about the Identity Service and data collection using Customer Intelligence 360 please visit any one of these sites below:   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide Customer Intelligence 360 Administration Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription for Customers Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Welcome to the vast digital landscape of the 21 st century, the age of social media marketing and online advertising platforms.   With a ginormous reach worldwide, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google have become flourishing hubs for businesses to engage with their target audiences at an immense scale, and SAS is on board and ready to join this worldwide phenomenon.   In March 2023 SAS integrated Customer Intelligence 360 with Facebook and Google, enabling users to link CI360 with their Facebook Audience and Google Ad accounts.   With this integration, users can now create new audiences and update existing audiences within these Facebook and Google accounts using the data collected in Customer Intelligence 360. There are so many advantages to this new technology for marketers, they can’t all be listed here, but here are few noteworthy use cases.   The magic is in the Connectors!   The powerhouse behind these Audience Tasks are the connectors.   Connectors give SAS Customer Intelligence 360 the information needed to integrate Facebook Audience and Google Ad accounts, providing the ability to upload data directly to them.   Case study walk through: Facebook Audience Task in CI360   Suppose a marketer at ABC Bank would like to open a new Facebook ad for a credit card offer. She has already connected Customer Intelligence 360 to the bank's Facebook Audiences account. She needs to create a new Facebook audience to target for their new offer. Please refer to the image below as we walk through these steps.     Step 1 - She logs in to Customer Intelligence 360 and navigates to Tasks Step 2 - She selects Facebook Audience Task Step 3 - Next, she chooses the Facebook connector she previously set up Step 4 - At ABC Bank, all data is stored in the cloud, so she chooses the Cloud Data Hub. She’ll use the data stored in this cloud data hub as her target audience. Step 5 - Next, she has the option of updating an existing Facebook Audience or creating a new one. She chooses to create a new Facebook audience and names this audience 0% Interest Credit Card Offer. Step 6 - Now she needs a data type that will match the customers in their Customer Intelligence 360 database with customers on Facebook. She knows that she has customer emails on file, so she chooses email address as her data type to match. Step 7 - Next, she chooses a Cloud Segment of customers that might be interested in this offer. This is her target audience and will be the customers uploaded to Facebook. Step 8 - Finally, she sets a recurrence for the audience to be updated every Thursday. Simple as that!  Now when she logs into her Facebook Audience account, she sees her newly created audience. She will use this list as the target for her new Facebook Ad. Every Thursday, Customer Intelligence 360 will run this Task to ensure her Facebook audience stays up to date.     To continue reading more about Campaign Management with Google and Meta Ads check out the communities article SAS for Closed Loop Campaign Management On Google & Meta Ads.    If you would like to learn more about Facebook Audience and Google Ad Tasks please visit any one of these sites below:   Customer Intelligence 360 User Guide SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Learning Subscription ... View more