Events are a key to success with your marketing automations. An event can be an action a user takes on your website, campaigns, or app (such as a click on a link). An event can also be something that happened related to the user that may have been an automated action, a third-party action, or another passive event that wasn't an explicit action taken by a user (such as an email bounce).
Cumulatively, events track a user's journey with your brand and are critical data points for creating a cohesive customer experience with personalized messaging.
In Iterable, there are two broad categories of events: system events and custom events. Iterable also has a special category of commerce events that unlock certain success metrics for your Iterable campaigns.
# In this article
# Ways to use events
For each incoming event, Iterable can:
- Save the event to a user's event history.
- Use events and their properties to build segments of users—either in a dynamic list, or a static one.
- Trigger a journey.
- Track conversions.
- Use event properties in Handlebars to create conditional logic or personalize templates (this is available only when the event triggers a campaign).
- Shape predictions made with Predictive Goals.
- Ignore the event and do nothing (such as with custom events you no longer need).
You can also send Iterable's system events to your other data platforms via system webhooks. When you do this, you can use events tracked from your Iterable campaigns to trigger automations for other business purposes (for example, via Zapier).
# Deciding which events to track
When designing your project, think about tracking events that are relevant to your marketing activities. You may have data sources that can supply a wide range event types, but not all of them are useful to you in Iterable.
It's important to note that sending all events that you possibly can track may clutter the segment builder and other workspaces, making it harder to find the fields and events that you're looking for.
In general, send events to Iterable if you need them for:
- Triggering a journey.
- Segmenting users who have that event in their history.
- Personalizing messages.
Here are some sample custom events that an e-commerce site might be interested in tracking:
- Searched item catalog
- Viewed an item
- Order shipped
- User submitted a product review
- User shared a link with a friend
# System events
System events are events that Iterable tracks based on campaign-related user actions as well as passive events.
Some system events are automatically tracked when they happen (such as an email bounce or a link click), while others require an API call to track. Tracking of these system events depend on your technical implementation and how you're using Iterable.
System events are key data points for determining a user's Brand Affinity. You can use system events to make segments and build journeys. To integrate with other tools that you use, you can create system webhooks that send system events of your choice as JSON payloads.
Iterable tracks the following system events (with these eventType values):
- Send (
emailSend)- Blast send (
blastSend) - Triggered Send (
triggeredSend)
- Blast send (
- Open (
emailOpen) - Click (
emailClick) - Send Skip (
emailSendSkip) - Bounce (
emailBounce) - Complaint (
emailComplaint) - Hosted Unsubscribe Click (
hostedUnsubscribeClick)
Embedded Messaging
- Embedded Click (
embeddedClick) - Embedded Impression (
embeddedImpression) - Embedded Received (
embeddedReceived) - Embedded Session (
embeddedSession)
In-App Messaging
- In-App Send (
inAppSend) - In-App Delivery (
inAppDelivery) - In-App Open (
inAppOpen) - In-App Click (
inAppClick) - In-App Close (
inAppClose) - In-App Send Skip (
inAppSendSkip) - In-App Recall (
inAppRecall) - Inbox Session (
inboxSession) - Inbox Message Impression (
inboxMessageImpression)
NOTE
In order to track the inboxSession and inboxMessageImpression events, you
must be using the Iterable mobile SDKs.
Push
- Push Send (
pushSend) - Push Open (
pushOpen) - Push Send Skip (
pushSendSkip) - Push Bounce (
pushBounce) - Push Uninstall (
pushUninstall)
SMS
- SMS Send (
smsSend) - SMS Received (
smsReceived) - SMS Click (
smsClick) - SMS Send Skip (
smsSendSkip) - SMS Bounce (
smsBounce) - SMS usage info (
smsUsageInfo) - This event is not triggered by a user action, but by the system to track SMS usage.
Web Push
- Web Push Send (
webPushSend) - Web Push Click (
webPushClick) - Web Push Send Skip (
webPushSendSkip)
Subscriptions (all channels)
- Subscribe (
emailSubscribe) - Unsubscribe (
emailUnsubscribe)
To learn more about subscription events, read Subscribe and Unsubscribe Events.
# System event payloads
Iterable's system events have properties that you can use in your marketing campaigns. Event fields vary greatly depending on the event type, the campaign and/or journey involved, the channel used, and on your Iterable configuration.
To see example schemas for system event payloads, read System Webhooks.
# Custom events
Your organization is unique, and so are your event tracking needs! In addition to the events Iterable will track automatically, you can create custom events to track any other actions that are important for your business. Generally, you can choose the name of the event and add custom data fields, but there are some best practices that you should follow. To learn more, read Best Practices for Field Names and Event Names.
There are several ways to track custom events in Iterable:
- Via API - You can send custom events to Iterable using the Events API.
- Smart Ingest - You can use Iterable's Smart Ingest feature to send custom events to Iterable from a data warehouse or other data source. To learn more, read Syncing Events with Smart Ingest.
- Integrations - You can use one of Iterable's integrations to send custom events from third-party platforms like Segment.
To learn more about custom events, read Managing Custom Events and Custom Event Properties.
# Commerce events
In addition to your own defined custom events, another type of event that
you can track is a commerce event. Commerce events include purchase and
update cart. These are classified as system events (purchase) and custom
events (updateCart) in some areas of Iterable, and they have specific
functions that apply to your e-commerce marketing needs.
By capturing purchase events and shopping cart updates, you can:
- Track purchases as campaign conversions.
- Create Insights reports to attribute purchases and revenue to specific campaigns.
- Create a journey to remind users when they've abandoned their shopping cart.
To learn more about these e-commerce events and how to manage a user's shopping cart data in their profile, read Managing Commerce Events and Shopping Cart Items.
To learn more about the properties of commerce events that you can use in your marketing campaigns, read Iterable Commerce Event Properties.
# Data retention for events
Iterable's data retention policy for events depends on the type of event:
# System event data retention
Iterable retains system events for 2 years, unless otherwise specified in your Iterable contract. This includes all system events, such as email opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints. For data retention purposes, commerce events are considered system events.
System events do not count towards an overall storage limit.
# Custom event data retention
Iterable retains custom events indefinitely, unless you set a custom event retention policy that specifies a time period of storage before the event is deleted.
Custom events count towards an overall storage limit for your account, which is determined by your Iterable contract.
To learn more, read Managing Custom Event Retention.