Email Campaign Tracking Codes

Some tracking codes in the footer of a commercially sent email are easier to decipher than others. It's like geek speak for marketers. With these, and appropriate ecommerce tracking with Google Analytics 360, companies can see how much, if any, revenue is generated by campaigns. It's usually paired with the assumption of "last touch" revenue source, where the last marketing activity a customer takes before a purchase is how credit is applied to a specific inbound or outbound methodology, be it from SEO, email, a product page on a website, a direct mail catalog SKU number, etc.

Here is an example. This comes from the Starbucks Rewards program, and their tracking code is just below the body of the email and above the footer; though many organizations place this tracking code in the AMP Script (if using a Salesforce product) and some place this below the footer/disclaimer text.

The tracking code text reads: Ref: 21-15-ANO-1-0-0-EM-SR-NA-ALL

Loosely, this reference translates to: ?? - ?? - ?? - 1 - 0 - 0 - Email - Starbucks Rewards - North America - All

I thought that the first two digits were the year of the broadcast, but Starbucks Rewards emails from 2020 also have this 21-15 starter tag. And, it's not sequential to time-order. There are campaigns that ran in January 2020 with the starter tag of 21-14 and emails that were sent in October 2020 with the starter tag of 21-13. So, maybe a campaign type? 

The middle "1-0-0" I think a null code placeholder. Here is a tracking example from their "Starbucks for Life" rewards campaign: Ref: 21-13-SFL21-1-0-0-EM-SR-NA-US

The easiest way would be to just ask someone who works for Starbucks marketing. But this is more fun. These tracking codes aren't meant to be memorable; but they are a good way for marketers to attribute sales revenue and customer engagement through email-to-store or email-to-mobile-order sales.

In contrast, retail stores with ecommerce websites often use coupon codes as tracking codes that are static and can be used by anyone whether or not they are a rewards customer; and as such, the coupon code variations reflect a simple code (e.g., holiday20, welcome10).

Starbucks Rewards Ratio Changes Yet Again

Two things come to mind when I think about Starbucks' loyalty rewards: a) 3rd party rewards are getting expensive to fulfill, and b) customers are still gaming the reward system. But, on the latter point, it's because Starbucks allows such things to happen with their current reward system which includes tasks such as:

• Double points day (basically 4x points for a purchase, excluding tax)
• Buy item x and item y (and sometimes item z), and get 10, 20, 50, 75, or 125 extra points
• Buy any item three times for x-bonus points
• Buy any item on three (up to 5) consecutive days for x-point

Battle of the Roasters

Who else would pay a premium on premium roasted coffee than the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle. It's no surprise that Starbucks has chosen to setup their "one-of-a-kind shrine to coffee" here, as their email announcement suggests. Stumptown Coffee (a local-to-Portland coffee roaster and purveyor) also has a newly opened roasting operation in Seattle as well. No doubt, they've noticed that Portlanders and Seattlites alike gift their bags of coffee to other coffee aficionados.

It would be a sad day to see Stumptown Coffee in an establishment other than a coffee house or acquired by a Starbucks-like conglomerate (let's hope that never happens). Stumptown Coffee has shops in Portland, Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles; whereas Starbucks is just about on every street corner with a heartbeat.

My little inkdot of a city has a population of 160,000+ and still has no Stumptown Coffee shop. Alas, I don't think our city meets the demographic or market size specs for the audience that Stumptown is targeting. After all, what's the cost of short drive into Portland for coffee besides the expenditure of transportation for a tax-free purchase? There are other local coffee roasters here like Paper Tiger, Torque, Compass, and my favorite Brewed Awakenings.

What's amusing about technology is that almost 20 yrs ago I wrote a business plan for an entrepreneurship course where my business model was a cyber cafe. It is astonishing to see how WiFi and the ridiculously cheap price of high speed internet has transformed eateries and coffee shops to all become BYOD (bring your own device) cyber cafes. Anyhow. That's it for this post.

Want an extra $5 on your Starbucks Card?

If you are unfamiliar with the Starbucks rewards card system, you might not know that you can transfer balances between Starbucks reward cards. Say if you got a stray $5 gift card from a promotion or as a holiday or workplace perk, you could take that balance and port it over to your regular Starbucks rewards card (or account, if you are using their mobile app for purchase transactions).

Starbucks promo email, 2013-02-20

When it comes to content and design, the Starbucks email and accompanying rewards landing page are minimalist. The content certainly does do the job of providing a meaningful amount of information that has a targeted call-to-action which encourages a user to do other steps, maybe check into what else Starbucks is offering, check on reward status or account balance, etc.

What you might not know is that you can also transfer a balance from a cash gift card, say a $100 Visa gift card to your Starbucks rewards card at any Starbucks-owned kiosk or store. And, if you're a Coinstar customer, you can convert your deposited coin balance to a Starbucks rewards card without incurring any service fees.

Want to know how they're tracking this campaign? By product SKU and registered reward card swipes at the register. This is an online/mobile campaign to drive in-store purchases.

And, if you're an avid coffee drinker, this is a darn good deal for 1 lb of whole bean coffee. 'Nuff said.