With ‘offline events’ feature, marketers can import customer interaction data from offline events such as trade shows, conventions, and bring it into your web application.

 

This can help marketers attribute offline events and activities to relevant marketing campaigns. The offline activities will also be available in a contact’s activity timeline.

 

How to import offline events?

Importing offline events involves important steps:


1. Preparing the CSV data file

2. Uploading the CSV file:

3. Checking error logs

 

1. Preparing the CSV data file

Create a CSV data file with relevant customer interaction data. Make sure that your CSV file's header row has columns that can be mapped to the fields. Include relevant event timestamps, event name, and contact details related to the event to ensure that segmentation is accurate. Map other event-related information with a proper event attribute label.

 

Things to pay attention to while creating the CSV file:

 

  • Event name and Email are mandatory attributes to be mapped for successful event creation. If not added to the CSV file, the import will fail.

  • The option to map the Event time field lies with the user. If not mapped from the CSV file, your web application will consider the upload timestamp as the event time.

  • Only specific Date formats are permitted during import. Using any other format will result in import failure.
    Permitted date formats:

    • yyyy-MM-dd

    • yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ

    • yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS z

    • yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS


2. Uploading the CSV file:

  1. Click the Marketing Automation  button on your left nav bar and scroll to Offline Events and click the same. This opens the Offline Events page. 

  2. Click on "Create offline event." Give your event group a relevant name and description and click.

  3. Click thebutton to upload the relevant CSV file from your system. If you want to upload a different file, click ‘Upload Different File’ to bring in a new file.


  4. Click . This takes you to the mapping section where you can map the event attributes to relevant fields in your web application. 


  5. Once you’re done mapping, click. This presents you with a notification requesting confirmation on upload of offline events. Click . 


    This initiates the upload of the offline events into your web application. 


3. Checking error logs

Once the upload is complete, you can find the status of the update and failed contact updates in the error log section. Go to Marketing Automation > Offline Events and click the offline event that you wish to check. You'll be presented with all the imports that have been made for a particular event type and the import status.


Where are offline events captured? 

Offline events gets captured and attributed to contacts. Whenever an offline event is attributed to a contact, the same can be found in the contact’s timeline.


How can offline events be used in segmentation?

Offline events can be used in segmentation and as event triggers during workflows. 

 

Segmentation:

You can use Offline events as a filter to create and save segments.

 

Journeys:

Offline events can also be used as filters to trigger actions in marketing journeys.

Marketing Email Campaigns: 

When a segment has been created, offline events can be used as filters to send bulk emails.