Floodlight tag can't be implemented in email

If you are trying to implement the Floodlight tag in email body. Please read this article completely before proceed.

I'm afraid that won't work in most cases. The mail stage is an exposure, not a conversion. The Floodlights are recommended to stay on the site because a "conversion" by definition is an action on the site or a buy.

Additionally, the email campaigns are never tracked 100% correctly. Please see the explanation below:

- IMPRESSIONS ON 1x1:
Only a fraction will be recorded since in many mail systems the images are not displayed by default. When called the tags, they can't have a random number anyway (no JS), so you will undercount in any case. For both these reasons, a massive underestimation of the opened mails will be produced.

- CLICKS:
If the user clicks on links tracked by click trackers, this action will be indeed counted. However, it is not guaranteed that the following conversions will be recorded, since the user can click from an email client (Outlook, Thunderbird etc.) and open a default browser (IE, Firefox etc.) which could have a different cookie set.

Apart from this, implementing Floodlight tag into the email body is not recommended because:

1) Only Image Floodlights will have a chance to be fired.
2) No possibility to generate random numbers (under counting).
3) By default, many clients are blocking images anyway.

abr=!ie

The abr=!ie parameter tells the DFA ad servers not to serve JavaScript content if the browser is Internet Explorer. This parameter is included only in the Iframe/JavaScript combination tags, not in JavaScript tags without Iframes. According to HTML conventions, browsers are not supposed to read any content between tags. As such, any browser that recognizes Iframes should read only the DFA Iframe tags, not the JavaScript tags. However, some obsolete versions of Internet Explorer read both sets of tags. The abr=!ie parameter ensures that these browsers are served only one ad for each set of DFA ad tags. This parameter is included only in the Iframe/JavaScript combination tags, not in JavaScript tags without Iframes.

If you are using the correct and the complete Iframe tag provided by DFA, then abr=!ie would not cause any issue.

You can check the Floodlight implementation on your website

Floodlight is one of the important tagging feature to record the conversion for the advertisers. If any advertiser implements floodlight tag on their website and check whether it's implemented correctly, they can check the tag implementation at their own by following steps:

Floodlight activities are conversions, and you can't have a conversion without a campaign driving it there. So if there is no DFA tracking at all, there will be zero Floodlight conversions. Same with revenue.

In Report Builder, you can pull a Floodlight impressions report. This will give raw data for how often the Floodlight tag fires, regardless of any activity.

Checking Floodlight

> Go to FireFox > Install HTTP Fox add on.
> Once the add on is installed, run it ( by getting under Tools button)
> In the search bar for HTTP Fox, put FLS to filter out floodlight tags firing on the page.
> Load the url into the browser.
> Any floodlights firing on the page will show up in the add on window.
> Compare the tag firing on the page with the respective tag in DCM. For example, the below highlighted portions (values) of the tag firing on the page should match with the respective tag generated in DCM:

http://123456.fls.doubleclick.net/activityi;src=123456;type=abc123cat=abc345;ord=4360688670599.461?

If you want to fire the tag correctly, please make sure the comment section is correctly closed and also the ord Id should not be zero. In sales tag the ord Id can be the Order Id of the transaction.

Additionally,  the sales tags are usually set on the final page where the transaction is completed successfully. If you want to track how many people visited the page, you can just use a standard floodlight tag on the initial page.

Also, if you want to track the details like the donation amount, you can use the standard tag with custom variables to track the value and then implement it on the submit button.

You can refer to the help center article here to know the different floodlight tags. You can also pass the link here to your webmaster that would help him in understanding different methods of implementing floodlight tags.

Google Tag Manager, basic knowledge

Now a days Google Tag manager is very useful tool and I recommend to use this  tool to manage your tagging technology. If you don't have any idea on GTM please follow the go through the steps below:

1. Google Tag manager is a free tool. In order to signup and create a new account, please visit the link below:
http://www.google.com/tagmanager/

Refer our resources to learn more about Google Tag Manager:
Google Tag Manager
Setup and Workflow

2. Using the GTM container ID you would be able to link the DFA Advertiser with Google Tag Manager. Once the Advertiser is linked to Google Tag Manager you would be able to push the Floodlight activities from DFA to Google Tag Manager.

For more information on Floodlight Integration and approvals, click here.

3. Before publishing the tags you would be verify the tags using preview and debug mode. In order to verify the tags, please refer the link below and follow the instructions.

https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/2695660

4. As of now we do not have specific link to track the release notes. Our team is going to start posting release notes weekly to the help center soon.

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.