This event is triggered whenever a site visitor clicks a link in a site page or an e-mail message.

Examples: Clicks link to page /promo.jsp

Clicks link from page /index.jsp [to page /promo.jsp]

Clicks link with sources BikePromo [from page /index.jsp] [to page /promo.jsp]

The ClickThrough event is similar to the PageVisit event, except that it is specifically designed to help you track and report on the links that visitors follow. The message that corresponds to this event contains detailed data about the link that the visitor clicked; for example, it contains information about both the page where the link is located and the page to which it leads. For more information, see the description later in this section of the properties that the message contains.

The ClickThrough event works only for links that include an anchor tag containing a dsource parameter. The following shows an example of the JSP code for this type of link:

<dsp:a href="content/welcome.jsp">
  <dsp:param value="OnSale, MemberDiscount" name="dsource"/>
  Click here to see this month's discounts!
</dsp:a>

The values that the page developer specifies for the dsource parameter (in the example, OnSale and MemberDiscount) can be any string. The Scenarios module uses them to identify and distinguish the links for purposes such as reporting. For example, the page developer might give several links the same dsource value to identify that they belong to a similar group, such as links that point to a specific set of content pages.

Note that at least one dsource value must be specified in the link for the event to be triggered.

The event is triggered only once for any clicked link, regardless of how many dsource values there are. For example, if the dsource value is "OnSale, MemberDiscount", only one ClickThrough message is sent.

In addition to the dsource parameter, you can optionally include a dreferrer parameter as shown in the following JSP example:

<dsp:a href="destination/page.jsp">
  <dsp:param value="source/page.jsp" name="dreferrer"/>
  <dsp:param value="OnSale, MemberDiscount" name="dsource"/>
  Click here to see this month's discounts!
</dsp:a>

The dreferrer parameter defines the sourcePath of a ClickThrough event (see below for more information about the sourcePath property). In normal circumstances, the sourcePath is determined by getting the value of the “Referrer” HTTP header. If this header is unavailable, the system can use the value of the dreferrer parameter instead.

You can also trigger the ClickThrough event from links that you embed in targeted e-mail messages. Use the same JSP or JHTML code (in other words, dsource parameters in anchor tags) that you would use for links in site pages. Note that the dreferrer feature is especially useful for links that you embed in targeted e-mail messages because no “Referrer” header is sent when a visitor clicks this type of link.

The following table shows additional information about the ClickThrough event.

Class name

atg.userprofiling.dms.ClickThroughMessage

JMS name

atg.dps.ClickThrough

Display name

Clicks a Link

Message context

Request

Message scope

Individual

Message source

Component: /atg/userprofiling/DPSMessageSource

Class: atg.userprofiling.dms.DPSMessageSource

Component that calls the message source

/atg/userprofiling/PageEventTrigger

How this event is triggered

This event is triggered when a request containing a URL with a dsource parameter passes through the ATG servlet pipeline and is processed by the /atg/dynamo/servlet/pipeline/PageViewServletTrigger, which calls the PageEventTrigger.

See the important note at the bottom of this section.

How to turn this event off

Set to false the broadcastClickThroughEvents property in component /atg/dynamo/servlet/pipeline/PageViewServletTrigger.

The message that triggers this event contains the following properties:

Property

Type

Scenario editor label

sourcePath

java.lang.String []

to page…

The pathname of the page that contained the clicked link. Note that the pathname does not include the protocol or domain of the URL. For example, if a visitor clicks a link on the page http://www.example.com/index.jsp, and that link is set up to fire a ClickThrough event, the sourcePath will be /index.jsp.

destinationPath

java.lang.String

from page…

The pathname of the page that is represented by the clicked link. Again, the protocol and domain are not included.

sourceNames

java.lang.String

where source name list…

A user-defined, comma-separated list of keywords that signifies some sort of information association with the clicked link. At least one keyword is required in order for a ClickThrough message to be fired.

profileId

java.lang.String

Does not appear.

The profile ID of the visitor who clicked the link.

siteId

java.lang.String

Does not appear.

The ID of the current site. The value is provided by the Site Context Manager.

This parameter applies to multisite environments.

Important: As described above, this event is triggered when a URL containing a dsource parameter is intercepted in the ATG servlet pipeline by the PageViewServletTrigger. This behavior means that the event will be fired not only when a visitor clicks a given link but also when he or she reloads a page containing that link. If you use the ClickThrough event for reporting purposes, and you want to track the number of times it occurs, note that the total count will include page reloads as well as clicks. Similarly, if you use this event to trigger scenario actions such as sending a targeted e-mail or populating a slot with content, and you design the scenario so that the action can occur more than once for the same site visitor, bear in mind that the action will also occur when a site visitor reloads a page containing a dsource URL.


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