The Value of the url Parameter When Tracking an Email Newsletter

General questions
1

BACKGROUND: I have created a routine whereby visitors do the following:

  1. Fill out a form and submit their information to a database.
  2. Receive a verification email with a link that when clicked verifies who they are and activates their account in the same database.
  3. Receive an email containing a newsletter that is automatically sent once their account is activated.

Now, the confirmation email and the email containing the newsletter are generated from separate templates whose addresses are not included in either of the two email messages – this, despite the fact that both the email and the newsletter contain links to the same domain on which the templates reside. These links point to various resources including image files, PHP processing files, and webpages.

QUESTIONS:

Recently I discovered a FAQ and user’s guide to tracking email and newsletters. The relevant code is listed below in url-decoded format for ease of reading and easily understood response.

<img src="https://piwik.example.com/piwik.php
	?idsite=YOUR_PIWIK_WEBSITE_ID
	&rec=1
	&bots=1
	&url=https://example.com/email-opened/newsletter_XYZ
	&action_name=Email opened
	&_rcn=internal email name
	&_rck=newsletter_XYZ" style="border:0;” alt="" />

QUESTION ONE: What value would I enter for the URL and how would it be reported?

QUESTION TWO: The bots parameter appears meaningless in my case and should be omitted. Do you agree?

Roddy

2

QUESTION: Would Matomo still track the event in the absence of the url parameter?

Roddy