Web Onboarding Guide

Follow
Avatar
Vaibhav Gupta
Updated

Welcome to Singular's Web Onboarding Guide. Singular measures conversions for websites using our JavaScript-tag-based Website SDK. When the tag is implemented in your website, Singular can determine if a user, identified by their browser, is visiting your website for the first time or returning to the website following a web campaign.

Note that the process described here differs from that for mobile app attribution.

 

Step by Step

1

Add Your Website as an "App" in Singular

To start using Singular reports, you must add your website to the Apps page in Singular.

  1. Go to Singular > Settings > Apps.
  2. If your corresponding Mobile App is already added, select that Mobile App. If not, click Add New App and name your app.
  3. Under New Site, select Web.
  4. Under "Add an app using", select Store URL and provide your website URL.
  5. Set your bundle ID and click Save. You will use this Bundle ID (AKA Product ID) in the SDK initialization.

web_bundleid.png

Tip: Bundle Id is a name for your website. We recommend using reverse DNS notation, e.g., "com.example.site". This will be used to identify your website throughout the Singular platform.
2

Integrate the SDK into Your Website

The Singular Website SDK allows you to attribute your user activity to marketing touchpoints and to track user events within your website.

Follow the guides to integrate the SDK in one of the following ways:

Tips:

  • The SDK initialization code should be called on every webpage and every time it is loaded.
  • We do not recommend loading the Singular SDK only after sign-in or any other activity. This will cause Singular to lose track of some user data.
  • You can track post-install user activity by adding events such as sign-in, start trial, buy, and subscription on the website.
  • We recommend implementing user ID tracking (custom_user_id). This will help you analyze data on the user level.
3

Check the Basic Functionality of Your SDK Integration

To verify your website SDK integration using Chrome's Developer Tools:

  1. Go to your website.
  2. Open the Developer Tools by typing Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows) or Cmd+Option+I (Mac).
  3. In the Network tab of the Developer Tools, type "Singular" in the filter box. If the Website SDK was implemented correctly, you'll see the "__PAGE_VISIT__" event.
  4. You can also see the SDID, which can be used to test the Web SDK integration in Developer Tools > Testing Console.

check_integration.png
4

Test Your Integration in the Singular Testing Console

  1. In Singular, go to Developer Tools > Testing Console.
  2. Click Add Device.
  3. Select the platform Web and select the keyspace Singular Device ID.
  4. Input the SDID you retrieved in the previous step and click Add.
  5. Once the SDID is added, you can reload the webpage and trigger events. The "__PAGE_VISIT__" and other events (if triggered) will be shown in the Testing Console.

testing_sdk.png

Notes:

  • The Testing Console only records data while you are inside the page. It will not display any events that have been triggered while the console was offline.
  • You can also test your integration by exporting user-level data at Attribution > Export Logs. This page lets you download user-level data such as conversions (installs), events, and more.
5

Implement Web-to-App Links

Web-to-app links let you track app installs back to the web ad from which the user arrived.

  1. A base web-to-app link can be generated by your Singular Solutions Engineer. Before contacting the SE, ensure you have added Android and iOS deep link schemes. To check, go to Settings > Apps, select your app, select the platform, and then click Show Advanced Settings.

    webtoapp_implemenetation.png

    Deep links provide a better web-to-app user experience, as they let you route users directly to a specific page or experience inside your app. If you choose not to use deep links, let your Singular Solutions Engineer know.

  2. Once you have the base link, you can go to Attribution > Manage Links and make changes if and when required.

Important: For web-to-app to work, all the "Download App" buttons on your website must be tagged with the web-to-app tracking link.

For more implementation information, see Website-to-App Attribution Forwarding for Mobile Web.
6

Start Tracking Web Campaigns

While running web campaigns, the destinations of your  URLs should include tracking parameters. If you already use UTM parameters, you can continue using them. If not, you can use our Create Web Link feature to create destination URLs with tracking parameters.

Create Web Links

To create web links:
  1. Go to Attribution > Create Web Link.
  2. Under Target (App), choose the app you're advertising. The Domain field is auto-filled.
  3. Modify Domain and Landing Page (optional) to create your links to your liking.
  4. Select an ad partner or common source name under the Partner dropdown.
  5. If you selected an ad partner, a "how-to" link appears under the Partner field. Click it to learn about any partner-specific instructions and best practices.
  6. Once the partner is selected, the Attributes section appears. Enter your UTM parameters, if any.
  7. Click Generate Link and copy your new tracking link.

createWebLinks.png

For more details on advanced setup, see the Singular Links FAQ or Creating Website Links.

Tip: You don't have to generate a web tracking link for every new campaign. Generate a link per network and use it for all your campaigns with that network.

Special Instructions for Facebook and Google Ads

To set up Facebook:
  1. After entering your information at the Campaign and Ad set levels, navigate to the Ad level to set your URL parameters.
  2. At the Ad level, click Build a URL parameter under website URL.
  3. In the tracking link generation page in Singular, copy the URL generated by the tracking link tool and add it to the website URL.
  4. See this Facebook document for more help.

web_fb_link.png

To Set Up Google Ads (AdWords):
  1. If you're not using Google Analytics, then a tracking template needs to be set up similarly to other partners.
  2. To do so, in the tracking link generation page, copy the URL parameters generated by the tracking link tool, without the base domain.
  3. When configuring an ad on Adwords, navigate to the "URL Options" section and paste the URL parameters in the "Final URL suffix" field.
    Note: This can be done in Account, Campaign, Adgroup, or Ad level as desired.
  4. See this Google document for more help.

web_adwords_link.png

Notes:

  • When creating website links using Singular, keep your UTM parameter naming conventions intact so that existing reports do not change.
  • In the generated tracking link, Singular adds its own set of parameters, identified by the "wp" prefix. The values of the "wp" parameters include network macros, which are replaced by the network while serving ads.
  • When a tracking link has both "wp" parameters and UTM parameters, the wp parameters take precedents for the purposes of Singular attribution.
  • If you do not use Singular's "wp" parameters, Singular can not guarantee accurate data joining (matching of tracker data such as web conversions and revenue to network data such as cost/ad spend).
7

Set Up Events in Singular

While integrating the SDK, you defined events you want to track. To see these events in your aggregated reports, you need to map them in Settings > Events. Note that your reports will only show events that happened after you mapped them.
8

Run a Campaign Report

Once you have finished integrating the SDK and mapping events, data will start flowing in. See Data Freshness Rates and Update Times for when you can expect your data.

To run reports on aggregated data, go to Analytics > Reports. Choose the dimensions and metrics you want to see in your report and click Run.

Be sure to choose the Platform dimension to differentiate between web and app data.

web_report.png