Record Attribution

The recordAttribution method provides a low-level standalone API to submit events to Nosto for processing in the backend. It is to be used for a standalone attribution submission that is not covered by the alternatives:

• Parameterless attribution usage

• The usage of attribution URL parameters

• The Session API

• The Request API (api.createRecommendationRequest)

nostojs(api => api.recordAttribution({ 
  type: "vp",
  target: "6829460553806", 
  ref: "191666803", 
  refType: "cmp" })
  .done() 
)

The API method recordAttribution accepts one event at a time, but users can chain multiple calls to recordAttribution and add as many events as they want.

Parameters

name	field type	is required	description
type	string	yes	type of event to which a placement (ref) should be attributed. Refer Event Types
target	string	yes	id of the element that's been loaded as a result of the event
ref	string	no	id of the element that hosted the link which triggered the event
refSrc	string	no	id of parent element of the link that triggered the event
targetFragment	string	no	the skuId in case of `vpevents
refType	string	no	Refer Event Ref Types

Event Types

Nosto supports following predefined event types

Type	Description
View Product (VP)	An event associated with viewing a single product
View Category (VC)	An event associated with event a single category of items
Internal Search (IS)	An event associated with results of search internal to a merchant's website
Add to cart (CP)	An event associated with adding a product or bundle to a cart
External Campaign (EC)	An event associated with campaigns, which are not part of nosto, that directed a user to a merchant website. These campaigns will contain google's UTM parameters (UTM parameters for more info.) in ev1 request URL
Custom Campaign (CC)	An event associated with campaigns, which are not part of nosto, that directed a user to a merchant website. These campaigns will not contain google's UTM parameters in ev1 request URL
External Search (ES)	An event associated with search outside of merchant's website (Google for e.g.) that brought the user to merchant's website
Give Coupon (GC)	An event associated with a coupon code campaign popup in which the customer has acted upon
Source (SRC)	An event associated with a customer action which needs to be attributed to one of Nosto's feature (api, email, rec, imgrec, cmp). Here the information is usually passed through a pre-configured source parameters name (nosto_source, by default) in ev1 request URL
Cart Popup Recommendations (CPR)	An event associated with a recommendation, that's shown when a product is added to cart, in which a customer has acted upon
Page Load (PL)	An event associated with a page load merchant's website
Content Campaign (CON)	Event triggered when a customer performs an action inside a content campaign

Event Ref Types

The refType (reference types) parameter is introduced as a replacement for Nosto's legacy srcevent. It's specifies the type of source (Nosto feature) that contributed to the attribution. The table below lists all possible reference types

Ref Type	Description
email	Triggered email
imgrec	Email widgets
rec	Onsite recommendation (Nosto recommendation template)
api	API recommendations (Session/JS API)
oc	Onsite campaigns
cmp	Category merchandising
os	Onsite search

Examples

Attributing a placement click to a vp (View Product) event

nostojs(api => {
  api
  .recordAttribution({ type: "vp", target: "12345678", ref: "frontpage-nosto-1" })
  .done()
});

In the above example,

• vp specifies the type of event and it corresponds to View Product

• 12345678 specifies the target and it corresponds to the ID of the product that's being viewed

• frontpage-nosto-1 specifies the slot’s ID from the placement that hosted the product that’s being clicked

Attributing a placement click to a cc (Custom Campaign) event

nostojs(api => {
  api
  .recordAttribution({ type: "cc", target: "12345678", ref: "frontpage-nosto-1" })
  .done()
})

In the above example,

• cc specifies the type of event and it corresponds to Custom Campaign

• 12345678 specifies the target and it corresponds to the ID of the product that's being viewed

• frontpage-nosto-1 specifies the slot’s ID from the placement that hosted the product that’s being clicked

Adding the fourth refSrc parameter

nostojs(api => api
  .recordAttribution({ type: "vp", target: "7513863258337", ref: "productpage-nosto-3", refSrc: "7513872007393" })
  .done()
})

In the above example,

• vp specifies the type of event and it corresponds to View Product

• 7513863258337 specifies the target and it corresponds to the ID of the product that's being viewed

• productpage-nosto-3 specifies the slot’s ID from the placement that hosted the product that’s being clicked

• 7513872007393 specifies the reference source and it corresponds to the ID of the product displayed in current page (PDP), that contained the ref element, (productpage-nosto-3)

Here we are recording a View Product event for product 7513863258337 which was clicked from the recommendation slot productpage-nosto-3 while on another product page 7513872007393

Attributing a click inside a content campaign to a con (Content Campaign) event

nostojs(api => {
  api
    .recordAttribution({ type: "con", target: "6ef452da787623f2" })
    .done()
})

In the above example,

• con specifies the type of event and it corresponds to Content Campaign

• 6ef452da787623f2 specifies the target and it corresponds to the ID of the content campaign inside which a customer performs an action

In similar way, we will be able to record attribution for all the event types listed under Event Types section of this documentation.