Learning patterns/Tracking an online campaign
What problem does this solve?
[edit]When running a campaign - for example, social media outreach, a central notice, or mobile editing - attempting to bring it new users, it can be difficult to track back the number of new registrations directly associated with your outreach. Without this list of users, it is likewise impossible to know the effects of your campaign over time to help answer questions around user acquisition (how many new users), user activation (how many new active editors), and user retention (proportion of new editors that still edit after x months). Such data is essential for understanding and improving on campaigns into the future.
What is the solution?
[edit]Create a unique URL for the target audience to click!
Anyone can start using URLs of this form to point to the signup page:
e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin/signup&campaign=foo&returnto=Gerald_B._Lefcourt
- returnto is automatically captured but can be overridden to send people to a specific page
- the campaign parameter permanently associates the value “foo” with any successfully created account landing on that page
General considerations
[edit]- campaigns are not sticky (the parameter is lost if you browse away from that landing page)
- campaigns are project-specific (if you want to point people to N different wikis, you'll run into problems)
- data is housed by WMF Analytics staff, so work with them to get it following the campaign!
When to use
[edit]- Running a central notice directly people to sign up for registration
- Hosting an edit-a-thon (or other program) focused on getting new users editing on Wikipedia
- Doing a Facebook outreach activity advertising for editing on Wikipedia
- Writing a personal blog post encouraging people to start editing Wikipedia
- the list goes on!
Endorsements
[edit]See also
[edit]Related patterns
[edit]External links
[edit]- Extension:Campaigns (MediaWiki)
References
[edit]- Learning patterns
- Learning patterns not yet ready for translation
- Draft learning patterns
- Programs learning patterns
- Project management learning patterns
- Event management learning patterns
- Volunteer management learning patterns
- Evaluation learning patterns
- Organizational effectiveness learning patterns
- Communications learning patterns
- Wiki design patterns
- Social media learning patterns
- Photo events learning patterns
- Editing workshops learning patterns
- Editathons learning patterns
- On-wiki writing contests learning patterns
- Workshops learning patterns
- Participation learning patterns
- Low complexity learning patterns
- Evaluation measurement learning patterns