webtrackR (version 0.1.0)

add_referral: Add social media referrals as a new column

Description

Identifies whether a visit was referred to from social media and adds it as a new column. See details for method.

Usage

add_referral(wt, platform_domains, patterns)

Value

webtrack data.table with the same columns as wt and a new column called referral, which takes on NA if no referral has been identified, or the name specified platform_domains if a referral from that platform has been identified

Arguments

wt

webtrack data object.

platform_domains

character. A vector of platform domains for which referrers should be identified. Order and length must correspondent to patterns argument

patterns

character. A vector of patterns for which referrers should be identified. Order and length must correspondent to platform_domains vector.

Details

To identify referrals, we rely on the method described as most valid in Schmidt et al.: When the domain preceding a visit was to the platform in question, and the query string of the visit's URL contains a certain pattern, we count it as a referred visit. For Facebook, the pattern has been identified by Schmidt et al. as 'fbclid=', although this can change in future.

References

Schmidt, Felix, Frank Mangold, Sebastian Stier and Roberto Ulloa. "Facebook as an Avenue to News: A Comparison and Validation of Approaches to Identify Facebook Referrals". Working paper.

Examples

if (FALSE) {
data("testdt_tracking")
wt <- as.wt_dt(testdt_tracking)
wt <- add_referral(wt, platform_domains = "facebook.com", patterns = "fbclid=")
wt <- add_referral(wt,
  platform_domains = c("facebook.com", "twitter.com"),
  patterns = c("fbclid=", "utm_source=twitter")
)
}