Audience List

What is an Audience List?

Remarketing is a free feature of DCM that enables you to create lists of users who have been exposed to your Floodlight Activity Tags, and target ads to those lists.

Audience Lists use Cookie-ID’s which identify users (browser specific), in order to know which pages (Floodlight Activities) they have visited.

Audience List Targeting can be performed during both inventory buying and for creative messaging.

A Remarketing Contract with DoubleClick is required to signed before Audience Lists are enabled for your DCM Account.

Floodlight in DCM

What is Floodlight?
Floodlight is an optional feature of DCM

Floodlight Tags allow advertisers to track and report on conversions — the actions of users who visit their website after viewing or clicking on one of the advertiser's ads.

Floodlight tags are placed on the advertiser's website.

Floodlight Tags are found at the Advertiser level in DCM

How does Floodlight work?

Whenever a user is served or clicks on a DCM Ad, or visits a DCM Floodlight Tag – we set the DoubleClick ID Cookie in their browser.

A cookie is a small piece of text that allows our servers to identify users via the anonymous ID.

Cookies are browser specific. (User = Browser)

An attributed “conversion” occurs when a User interacts with one of your DCM Ads before visiting one of your Floodlight Tags.










 Lookback Window:

The Lookback Window is the set duration of time you feel any Ad interactions influence a user's conversion intent.

Only Clicks and Impressions within the Lookback Window are attributable as ‘driving’ a conversion.

In App Tracking

There are a few different scenarios to be considered with mobile conversion tracking. Before I describe these scenarios, please keep in mind the following:

Feature phones store cookies with limitations (i.e. phones that are not smartphones might not store cookies at all, or they might store cookies but these cookies could be deleted when powering off the device -this really depends on the device-)
Certain browsers (read Safari -both on mobile and desktop-) block writing third-party cookies. This is their default setting (note that a user could change this behavior). It's important to mention that if a user clicks on ad, DoubleClick will become a first-party to the browser (doubleclick.net momentariy appears in the browser URL box and the user is taken to the destination URL -this is done to track clicks-). Once the cookie exists, DoubleClick can read this cookie. If a user never deletes its DoubleClick cookie, this user will be tracked across any page that has a DoubleClick ad. Safari does not (by default) block reading third-party cookies, only writing third-party cookies.

Mobile Web (publisher) to Mobile Web (advertiser page)
This scenario is exactly the same as in desktop.
Click-through conversions are tracked
View-through conversions are tracked *
* As stated earlier, only if the browser doesn't block writing third-party cookies. If the browser does block writing third-party cookies, the DoubleClick cookie may already exist (if the user previously clicked on a DCM ad, where DoubleClick is considered the 1st party and is able to write the cookie).

In-app (publisher) to Mobile Web (advertiser page)
Click-through conversions are tracked only provided that the user is taken to a full browser when clicking on the ad.
Mobile Web (publisher) to In-app (advertiser)

Conversions cannot be tracked.

In-app (publisher) to In-app (advertiser)
Click-through conversions are tracked *
View-through conversions are tracked *
* If the mobile network (publisher) passes the Mobile Ad ID (Apple's IDFA or Android's Advertiser ID) to DoubleClick (the app network ad SDK is responsible for passing the device identifier AdID/IDFA in the ad calls for impressions and clicks) and the Advertiser is using a Google Tag Manager Mobile Container (using Google Tag Manager's SDK) or implementing the Floodlight so that it passes the Mobile Ad ID (see 'Direct Floodlight calls').

At DoubleClick we are working to bring solutions that don't rely on the cookie for mobile conversion and cross-device conversion tracking (as cookies were designed at a time where multiple devices were not taken in mind). Unfortunately, I currently cannot share more information regarding this.

HTML_IE_FF

I’ve checked the creative code and it looks like the zips had target=_blank coded within the clickTag which was opening 2 windows when clicked, so I removed the target attribute as window.open would serve the purpose of opening a new window.

Even after removing the target attribute, we still get the [Javascript Window] error in mozilla. Here's a quick fix I applied by using a void parameter to discard the null value (screenshot attached).

And this worked! The test creative is now clicking through in Mozilla and IE. The IE however, you’ll have to check the pop up to Allow Blocked Content.

I’ve attached the modified creative for your reference. You can share it with the creative developers and confirm the same.

Please do not hesitate to let me know if you face any further issues or you've trouble opening the zip files.

VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) and Vpaid

What is DCM In-Stream?

An in-stream video refers to video ads. DCM is able to serve video ads to video players on a publisher's website.

DCM In-Stream ads are VAST compliant. VAST stands for "Video Ad Serving Template". It is a set of standards set by the IAB that allows for widespread compatibility across the web for video ad serving.

VAST is the IAB-established 3PAS standard for In-Stream Video. Traditionally, each website has its own video player with its own look and functionality. VAST standardizes an XML file that acts like a digital filing cabinet, providing links to video files, companion banners, non-linear banners, and tracking pixels that live on DoubleClick’s server. This allows publishers to keep using their own video player, while pulling in the assets they need from DoubleClick's servers.

What is VPAID?

VPAID stands for “Video Player-Ad Interface Definition” and is an IAB-published industry standard for interactive in-stream video ads.
There are two types of VPAID creatives: VPAID linear and VPAID non-linear.

VPAID linear: This type of creative appears by itself, not alongside publisher content. It can appear before, between, or after the publisher's video.
For example, a VPAID linear creative might interrupt a publisher's cartoon to display a video commercial with interactive graphics overlaying the advertiser's video content. LIVE EXAMPLE

VPAID non-linear: This type of creative only overlays content over a publisher's video, and will not interrupt the publisher's content. However, interacting with the overlayed creative (with a click) can interrupt the publisher's video and render the advertiser's content instead.
For example, a VPAID non-linear creative might show a small image across the bottom of a publisher's cartoon. Clicking the image might interrupt the publisher's cartoon and load a video that takes up the whole video player.

Difference:

VAST :In-stream video redirect creatives allow DCM to track other in-stream video creatives, including those that are running on a non-DoubleClick ad server. The in-stream video redirect creative has no assets and redirects to a VAST URL you specify. You’ll add the VAST URL in your creative and can specify the same settings as a video creative, including companions.

VPAID:VPAID creatives are rich media creatives that render in a publisher's in-stream video player. They typically use a Flash asset and involve video content and rich media. One important ability of VPAID creatives is that they can pause or mute the publisher's video player and bring up their own content, including interactive options.

Iframe in iframe isn't recomended in DCM

DCM doesn’t officially support the implementation of IFrame in IFrame due to some known technical issues. If you piggyback an IFrame Floodlight tag, or a 3rd party IFrame tag you might encounter some problems.

We suggest only piggybacking image Floodlight tags. This will avoid any Iframe in Iframe issues. Image tags will not fire any other default/publisher tag implemented inside them.

Known technical reasons Iframe in Iframe causes issues:

-Some old browsers have problems in rendering nested Iframes if they don't have an unique ID attribute. This problem is usually resolved by assigning a specific ID attribute to each Iframe , for example:

OUTER IFRAME (Floodlight)

Flatrate impressions set up in DCM

If any one has any query relkated to flat rate and how it can be set in DCM to calculate the value correctly then you should follow the information below:

I would like to inform you that the cost for Flat Rate is calculated normally until the threshold of the number of booked units just like CPM. So, in order to calculate the flat costs correctly, we recommend to enter 1 in the units field and then the cost of the placement you have agreed under 'cost' and select 'cap cost'. In this way, if one impression is served, the cost will be reached and thus you will pay the fixed amount. The real purpose of the Flat Rate would be to have an absolutely fixed
cost regardless of the impressions, and at this moment it can be achieved in DCM inputting Flat Rate cost with just 1 unit.

The "flat rate" function allows you to set a cap on the cost, but if you don't hit the clicks set, then the cost doesn't accrue. Once the booked number of clicks is reached, no additional cost accrues."

DCM_HTML 5

HTML5 Specs

Standard sizes: 160x600, 300x250, 300x600, 468x60, 728x90 and 320x50 (mobile).

Files must only contain one HTML script file + images. Cannot contain additional javascript files. HTML file must be named index.html.

Image file names cannot contain spaces.

Must be built in Flash Professional CC and developed as a HTML5 Canvas, or hardcoded.

Cannot be built in Adobe Edge – significant clickTag issue with multiple files.

Must contain clickTag: {window.open(window.location.hash.substr(1,window.location.hash.length),"_blank");}

Maximum file size: 150kb (inclusive of all files)

Creative cannot be over 30 secs. Best practice is no loops. You can choose to build a refresh button into creative for user initiated replay.

Must have 1 pixel non-white border

Other than the creative area, the html5 file has to have a blank (white) background/canvas.