Issues with campaign handling

mattukplym · January 1, 2023, 2:37pm

Hello and Happy New Year!

I have an issue with Matomo on a single page application website related to campaign tracking.

Here is the situation:

I land on the site with correct and valid campaign parameters. I see the the correct cookies are created and specifically, pk_ref is set. I can navigate around and my actions are bound to a single visit and correctly recorded in Matomo.
Within the same 30 minute timeframe, I revisit the site with a different campaign name. The first page view is correctly registered with these new campaign details. However, the second page view of this “visit” generates a new visit reverting back to use the values stored in the pk_ref cookie from the first visit.

I have tried a multitude of ways to overcome this (I am using the Javascript tracker) ~ and I am not a programmer I have conducted many searches in this forum and beyond and this is the same issue as mentioned here: https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo/issues/12218#issuecomment-339364512

Ideally, the behaviour I would expect is this:

The value stored in the pk_ref cookie should be from the latest visit including the current active visit.

The campaign details of the current active visit should never be overwritten with values from the cookie

Has anyone had any experience of this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

heurteph-ei · January 2, 2023, 2:50pm

Hi @mattukplym
Maybe have a look at:

github.com/matomo-org/matomo

create_new_visit_when_campaign_changes = 1 not working

opened 04:49PM - 23 Oct 17 UTC

eramirezprotec

Hi! In the documentation I can read the following: "By default Piwik will cr…eate a new visit whenever a visitor views your website using a different campaign information from the visitor’s ongoing visit. You can disable this behavior by setting create_new_visit_when_campaign_changes=0 under [Tracker] section in your config/config.ini.php file." But it is not working for me. When I visit my website using different campaigns, Piwik registers always the same campaign established in the cookie a long time ago. It only changes when the session ends and I visit the website using a different campaign (but it has to be the first visit after the session ends, because if not, the old campaign is set again for the new visit). Btw, is it the intented behavior to keep the same campaign even when the session ends and after that the user visits the site without any campaign specified in the url? Thank you very much in advanced.

mattukplym · January 3, 2023, 3:18pm

Thanks @heurteph-ei

Ive read and re-read that post. Can I ask a question (sorry if it’s dumb but I am struggling to put 2 and 2 together)?

In the situation above, what I see in my case is three visits:

I enter with campaign (?mtm_campaign=test1)
Visit 1 - attributed to test1: I navigate a few pages and all actions are logged under this visit

I leave the site and re-enter with campaign (?mtm_campaign=test2)
Visit 2 - attributed to test2: My first page view is logged. I then navigate to another page and…

Visit 3 - All subsequent activity is attributed back to campaign #1

Do you know how I can force subsequent activity on visit 2 to remain on visit 2.

I am using the javascript tracker on an SPA. Ive tried all sorts of combinations of setting the referrer url but have had no joy.

heurteph-ei · January 13, 2023, 4:06pm

Probably the cookie is set to test1 and not updated later… (I am not expert on campaigns)
Then because the URL contains test2 on 1st page of 2nd visit, it is linked to campaign test2, and because the cookie would not update, (and URL doesn’t contain the campaign anymore), following pages are attributed to test1…
Try maybe to keep the mtm_campaign (with its value) on further page URLs? (you can “rewrite” URLs in Matomo)

I saw also this: