# Channel grouping
# Introduction
The WitCloud tool is based on collecting data from various sources and systems, and then combining them in thematic reports.
This allows you to draw business conclusions about, for example, the financial effectiveness of your marketing activities or the degree to which your budget is being met.
The problem is different, often inconsistent naming used in different systems. The solution to this problem is simple - grouping, or giving several records a common label.
The channel group is the primary prism through which we present report visualization. Below we have presented an example of grouping based on data from a Facebook channel, where there are different sources/media of traffic depending on, for example, the type of device or application.
Having such two groups we can easily add information about costs from another source - cost tables of advertising system for paid ads, and costs of promotions, whisper marketing, for organic traffic.
Used default grouping of channels in reporting is based on grouping from Google Analytics based on traffic source and medium, slightly expanded based on our experience.
Expand to see default channel groupings
This includes channels:.
Affiliate - affiliate programs
Allani - fashion industry aggregator portal
Awin - global network for affiliate marketing
Ceneo - price comparison engine
Convertiser - a platform that specializes in affiliate programs
Criteo - an advertising company that delivers online display advertising
Cirect - direct traffic
Display - display advertising
Domodi - fashion industry aggregator portal
Email - traffic from email campaigns
Facebook Ads - paid traffic from Facebook ads
Facebook Organic - traffic from Facebook and its affiliated portals and services
Google Ads - paid traffic from google ads
Google Organic - paid traffic from Google search engine
Newsletter - e-mail messages sent regularly to a specific group of recipients by the company.
Optimise - intelligent advertisements optimised for effect
Other Organic - other sources from organic search engine traffic
Other Paid - other paid traffic channels
Referral - traffic coming from referrer websites
RTB House - global affiliate marketing network
Social - Social media
Synerise - a tool supporting sales processes based on user behavior
Tiktok - mobile web application, which is based on the possibility of sending very short video materials
Tradedoubler - global network of affiliate marketing
Other - not included in any of the above groups
The default grouping is an effective and versatile solution, but if you want to group channels differently, our solution gives you that option!
# Use case
But, after all, we want to group channels as best as possible!
The following simple example shows how grouping channels for cost assignment is done:
Rules for grouping channels:.
If the Ga source column contains the value "Facebook", the feed will be named "Facebook Ads".
If the Data Source column contains the value "Adwords", the feed will be named "Google Ads".
If the Data Source column contains the value "Facebook", then the feed will be named "Facebook Ads"
If the Data Source column contains the value "Google", then the feed will be named "Google Ads".
Grouping gives us additional options and flexibility. Imagine a more complex case - conducting business in several countries and using several advertising systems. In a situation where you are running activities on one Facebook account for several countries and dedicated Google Ads country accounts you can easily add a channel for each market separately.
Channel grouping rules:.
If the Data Source name column contains the value "Facebook PL", the feed will be named "Facebook Ads PL".
If the Data Source name column contains the value "Campaign PL" the feed will be named "Google Ads PL"
If the Campaign name column contains the value Campaign A then the feed will be named "Facebook Ads PL"
If the Campaign name column contains the value Campaign 1 then the feed will be named "Google Ads PL"
# Customizing the default grouping at the report level
The grouping can be flexibly adjusted to your needs, so that you can view the data in the most convenient and clear way, from the perspective of the most important channels for your business. For this purpose, we can use the solution prepared by us, i.e. create your own grouping of channels using the CASE WHEN formula in Data Studio. This way we have control over how our data is grouped and we don't have to make any changes to the Google Analytics view or WitCloud configuration.
To make optimal use of this data we should group it to best reflect the nature of our business. In order for you to group the data according to your preferences you need to create a formula and customize the function we use. To do this, add a calculation field.
You can copy the terms below and adapt them to your individual case.
Expand to see a mapping of the default channel grouping
CASE
WHEN LOWER(Source / Medium) = 'google/cpc' THEN 'Google Ads'
WHEN (CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), 'facebook') or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "fb")) and not CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"referral") THEN 'Facebook Ads'
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "instagram") and not CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"referral") THEN "Facebook Ads"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "messenger") and not CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"referral") THEN "Facebook Ads"
WHEN (CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), 'facebook') or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "fb")) and CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "referral") THEN 'Facebook Organic'
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "instagram") and CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "referral") THEN "Facebook Organic"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "messenger") and CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "referral") THEN "Facebook Organic"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "criteo") THEN "Criteo"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "tradedoubler") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "td") THEN "Tradedoubler"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "rtbhouse") THEN "RTB House"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "optimise") THEN "Optimise"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "awin") THEN "Awin"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "allani") THEN "Allani"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "domodi") THEN "Domodi"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "convertiser") THEN "Convertiser"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "tiktok") THEN "Tiktok"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "ceneo") THEN "Ceneo"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "organic") and CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"google") THEN "Google Organic"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "organic") and not CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"google") THEN "Other Organic"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "synerise") THEN "Synerise"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "direct") THEN "Direct"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "affiliate") THEN "Affiliate"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "referral") THEN "Referral"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "email") THEN "Email"
WHEN (CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "cpc") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "ppc") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "paidsearch")) and not CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium),"google") THEN "Other Paid"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "newsletter") THEN "Newsletter"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "display") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "cpm") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "banner") THEN "Display"
WHEN CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "social") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "social-network") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "social-media") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "social network") or CONTAINS_TEXT(LOWER(Source / Medium), "social media") THEN "Social"
ELSE "Other"
END
The most important fields available in all reports, based on which you can create and expand channel grouping conditions:
data_source_type - data source type e.g. Ecommerce, Ad systems, User Bhaviour
data_source_subtype - subtype of data source e.g. Magento, Shoper, Analytics, Facebook, Tradedoubler
data_source_name - exact name of the defined collector
channel - default name of the channel group
source - traffic source from Google Analytics
medium - traffic medium from Google Analytics
campaign - campaign name
# Best practices for creating conditions:
CASE WHEN.
The CASE WHEN function works in such a way that it "browses" the defined conditions row by row (in turn from top to bottom) and returns a specified value when the criteria is met. It is important that the condition that we want to define additionally should not be below the row that defines a wider set. So if we want to separate sample.com/refferal traffic sources we should place the row defining "Sample Channel" above the row defining the general "Refferal" channel. If it was placed below this line, the function would not work as we would like, because the first condition would be: Source / Medium contains "referral" and the function would return the value of "Refferal" without searching further conditions.
Useful features.
Contain text (opens new window)
Regex (opens new window)
Trim funciton (opens new window)
Lower function (opens new window)