Creating Custom Integrations with the Campaign Module

This topic explains how to configure the Campaign module for a custom integration.

The Campaign module allows Video Cloud to synchronize viewing data from Campaign-enabled Brightcove Players to popular marketing automation platforms. The Campaign module can also be configured with a custom integration. With a custom integration, viewing data is saved locally in Video Cloud and the Audience API is used to programmatically extract the data. The Campaign Module will store up to 500K event views per connection. Once the limit has been reached, it will start purging old events.

The Campaign module integration consists of two main components:

  • A Brightcove Player plug-in to enable tracking of video views data
  • Custom development that uses the Audience API to retrieve the viewing data

Requirements

To use the Campaign module you must:

  • Have a Professional or Enterprise Video Cloud account
  • Have the Campaign module enabled for your account by submitting the required information in the initial splash screen that appears when you open the Campaign module
  • Click through the service agreement the first time you use the module
  • In order for leads to be collected, a lead form has to be configured and assigned to a player
  • Use the Advanced (in-page) embed code when publishing your player; Standard (iframe) embed code will not work as the plugin will be running inside of an iframe and therefore will be unable to access the parent page URL parameters

Setting up the connection

Follow these steps to configure a custom integration.

  1. Open the Campaign module.
  2. In the left navigation, click Data Connections.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Select Custom as the integration.
  5. (Optional) Enter a Connection Name.
    select custom
  6. Click Connect.

The custom connection is now set up and ready to use.

Configuring the integration

Once the connection has been made, you can configure the integration.

connected options
  1. By default, the Connection Status will be Enabled. The Connection Status determines if Video Cloud video engagement data is saved.
    • Enabled - Data is collected and will be saved
    • Disabled - No data is collected (integration is disabled)
  2. Select a data retention policy. The data retention policy determines how long the viewing data and lead form data (if using a Campaign lead form) will be retained in your Video Cloud account.
    data retention options

Creating a Campaign-enabled player

Video engagement data will only be saved when you are using a Campaign-enabled video player. For information on creating a Campaign-enabled Brightcove Player, see Creating a Campaign-enabled Player.

Passing a tracking ID

The Campaign module supports the ability to pass a tracking ID. The tracking ID might be used to track a campaign ID for example. The tracking ID can be appended to the URL that displays the Campaign-enabled player or added to the player embed code.

  • Example: Appended to URL
    http://www.myurl.com/video.html?bctrackingid=12345
  • Example: Added to player embed code
  <video data-video-id="6033402539001"
          data-account="1486906377"
          data-player="default"
          data-embed="default"
          data-application-id
          class="video-js"
          data-bc-trackingid="12345"
          controls></video>
  <script src="//players.brightcove.net/1486906377/default_default/index.min.js"></script>
    

Identifying viewers

When using a custom integration, you are responsible for identifying viewers. The Campaign plugin needs two key pieces of information:

Description URL Parameter Embed Parameter Value
Is the viewer known (needed for lead form) bcknownuser data-bc-known-user 0 or 1
What’s the GUID (needed for view event tracking) bccustomguid data-bc-custom-guid string
 

These values can be passed in via URL parameters or through the player embed code. For viewer tracking to occur, the user id should be passed as a URL parameter on the page that is displaying the video. The known user parameter is required for lead forms (if you'd like the lead form to conditionally display for unknown viewers).

Viewing video data

There are several options available for viewing video data when using a custom integration: