Scoring for web events and activities
Scoring for web events/activities is not retroactive and includes the events and activities that take place after the web activity is added to the scoring model. If someone does a web event or activity today, and that web event or activity is put into scoring tomorrow, then the person's score does not reflect the web event or activity, even after recalculation.
If a web event or activity is put into scoring today, and a person does that event or activity tomorrow, the score increases. If the web event or activity is then removed from scoring, the person's score decreases upon recalculation. If the same web event or activity is then added back into scoring, the person's score increases again when recalculated.
Scoring for program activities
The program activity does not work the same way as web events or activities. Scoring of programs is retroactive and accounts for all program history. If program activity is added to a scoring model, then all historical program activity will be included for a person the next time that person is scored.
Exceptions for retroactively scored behaviors
Scoring becomes relevant when you create a model and assign points. When you click the Recalculate button, it retroactively re-scores all the contacts in the database from the point of the model's creation, not before. Behaviors that occur before the scoring model's creation are not retroactively scored. However, there are two exceptions.
Exception 1
Web tracking activities are retroactively scored if a contact was anonymous before the model is created and becomes known after model is created, and when one scoring model is in the organization.
Note: Not applicable to email activities – if the contact opened or clicked an Acoustic Campaign sent email, they are not anonymous anymore.
Anonymous | Model creation time stamp | Become known time stamp |
Before 4/10/2013 - 9 AM | 4/10/2013 - 9 AM | After 4/10/2013 - 9 AM |
If you created the score model on 4/10/2013 at 9 AM, the anonymous contact that visited a website (Event 1) before that date is stored on a different table, not the lead events table. When the contact performs another event (Event 2) after the score model was created, such as submitting a web form, the contact becomes a 'known visitor'. At that point, the scoring rule apply from Event 1, Event 2, and any future events to the contact.
Exception 2
When a new scoring model is created and includes the same actions as an older scoring model, the behaviors that occurred before the new scoring model's creation are retroactively scored. For this to happen, the contact must perform the same action and the recipient ID must exist in the original scoring database.
Example
Old model: Visit website A any time = 10 pts
New model: Visit website A within last 14 days = 30 pts
In this case, the identical action is Visit website A. Note that the different time frame does not interfere with retroactive scoring in the new model.
The caveat is that the new model must use the same rules for assigning points (not the same point value).
Now we have the same action, recipient, and list. Since the action was scored in old model, it is already written into Lead events table. The past behavior relative to the new model creation time is retroactively scored in the new model.
In the old model, the recipient would be assigned 10 pts, and in new model it would be assigned 30 pts from visiting website A action.
Alternative Approach
An alternative approach would be to score websites and/or pages, but apply 0 points for visiting. Then, you can change the points to a designated value. Upon re-calculating the scores, it retroactively applies the new point values up to the date the websites were first added to the Scoring model.
Example
Three months ago, you created a scoring model with website behaviors or you added them to an existing model, but did not apply any points (0 points).
Today, you changed the 0 points to be 10 points.
You then recalculate the scores. Scoring then goes back to the point that the web tracking behavior was added and applies the new points for each contact.