In this guide, you will find some simple yet effective best practices for optimizing your usage of the Engagement platform, specifically in terms of Monthly Processed Events (MPE) and Maximum Event Storage (MES). These tips and tricks will allow you to make the most of Engagement usage and your license while maintaining functionality and insights.

Learn more about:

1. What MPE is
2. What MES is
3. How to reduce MPE
4. How to reduce MES

Monthly Processed Events (MPE)

Monthly Processed Events (MPE) refer to the data processing into or within the Engagement platform spanning one month. Various actions trigger events, such as when customers view items, start new sessions, receive or open emails. Essentially, any events generated by the system, via API, web-tracking, or any other import source require processing. The processed events count toward your MPE, incurring costs covered by your contract.

Below is a complete overview of actions that do and do not generate events.

Engagement tracks and processes both system events, predefined and available by default, and custom events, tailored specifically for your business. It is important to note that different event attributes do not count as separate events. However, if events have the same name but differ in status, they are considered distinct events for MPE calculation purposes.

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Duplicated events

If you send or import the same event multiple times, each occurrence will be treated as a new event. However, if there is a 1:1 duplication, deduplication takes place.
Event duplication can occur when you send the same event with different attributes multiple times. To avoid this, it is crucial to ensure only unique data is tracked or imported.

You can use deduplication of events to clean up and prevent storing the same event twice. However, even with deduplication, the event will still be considered processed and counted toward your Monthly Processed Events (MPEs).

Maximum event storage (MES)

Another aspect affecting your costs is storing data managed by the Maximum Event Storage. MES refers to the maximum number of data points (events) that can be stored in your Engagement account at any given time.

It includes all the currently active events that have not expired or been deleted. However, it is worth noting that events previously in the platform that have been deleted, expired, or moved to another storage area, like EBQ, do not count toward this limit. In essence, MES sets the boundary for the number of events you can keep in the platform without incurring additional costs.

Efficient usage tips

How to reduce MPE

Go to Overview > Bloomreach usage to explore the efficiency of MPE in your account. Here, you can find a general overview of your MPE, dashboards analyzing each communication channel, and data breakdowns to see which events and campaigns are used.

Follow these best practices to optimize your MPE and avoid common pitfalls.

1. MES > MPE

Your MES should be higher than your MPE. If it is reversed, this can be a recent bug, or you may have launched a new website or a massive campaign.

2. Import DELTA

Use DELTA imports to avoid importing the same event repeatedly. DELTAs only bring in new or updated data, preventing duplicated events and unnecessary processing increasing your MPE.

3. Event tracking shows healthy signs

Check whether the number of your tracked events in the last few weeks is consistent with a healthy business.

These include:

• Page_visit can be tracked but does not need to
• View_category, search_results, and checkout are tracked for advanced users only.

The table below shows unhealthy signs in event tracking you should avoid.

For example, notice here that, mainly from October to January, the amount of view_item and view_category far exceeded the number of page_visit events, which is logically unsound. The same holds for the number of session_start and session_end events, which should logically be the same amount.

4. Ad events up to 10-20% of MPE

Make sure your ad events constitute at most 10-20 % of your MPE. If you send ad audiences daily to segments of customers rather than to all of them, it is vital to check the conditions in your scenarios to ensure you do not send the data repeatedly.

Before sending an ad audience to the relevant segments, check if the customer received one the previous day and whether their condition for qualifying for the segment has changed in the last 24 hours. Check out the Ads Best Practices Guide article for more insight into optimizing your ads.

How to reduce MES

For more details on your stored events, you can easily create a report on this yourself. Go to Analyses > Reports, and create a report counting each event.

Follow these best practices to optimize your MES and avoid common pitfalls.

1. Use EBQ

Moving events to EBQ will save you storage space while retaining the ability to query and analyze the data when needed. By expiring events, you will not lose data itself.

2. Set expirations

Set data expirations in your project to automatically delete unnecessary events. Using these expirations will help control the gradual increase in your MES. Refer to the table under the upcoming sixth tip for recommended event storage when setting expirations. Data expirations also allow you to differentiate between various attributes, with examples for banner and campaign events.

The highlighted period in the image below shows a steep rise in MES due to not using expirations.

3. Ensure consistent tracking

Using the table above, check whether inconsistent tracking causes inconsistent storage.

4. Page_visit up to 5% of MES

Make sure your page_visit storage constitutes no more than 5% of your MES. One of the first things to expire is this event, as it has the least benefits.

5. Campaign and banner storage only up 30% each of MES

Make sure your campaign and banner storage both constitute no more than 30% each of your MES. Expire irrelevant campaign types, statuses, and banner actions using the optimization table below.

6. Optimize event tracking and retention

Refer to this table for guidance on which events are not necessary to track and the recommended retention period for optimizing your data storage.

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Data deletion

You can reduce your MES by deleting data in the Data Manager. But note that deleting data will reduce MES only, not MPE.