Digital Marketing Information Hub

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Passing dynamic values from ad tags to DFA Data Transfer files

Passing dynamic values from ad tags to DFA Data Transfer files

Background on the u= parameter in Ad Tags for Data Transfer
The u= parameter is a string that is appended to the end of the ad tag to pass custom data to be tracked in Data Transfer files.

The most common use is to pass non-targeted key-value information into the reports by replicating the key-values from the request string. Web developers, who typically handle ad tags, will append the u= parameter to pass the dynamic key-value data.

Here are a few best practices for using the u= parameter:

The total key-value string (including the u= string) has a limit of 511 characters. The u= parameter section of the key-value string in the ad tag has a maximum of 255 characters within that.

The values are not parsed in the Data Transfer files, so they show up as one string, hence the flexibility of how you insert data. For example, you could use an underscore ("_") to delimit the information inside the u=.

U= parameter cannot include any reserved delimiters, including ( "=", ",", "|" or ";")

The u= parameter should be placed in the ad request as the last key-value, apart from the ord=[random] value, which should always be the last key-value in the string.

The "Site-Data" column captures the u= data in the Network Impression and Click files.

Example: If a trafficker wants to capture the key-values age=12 and gen=male in the u=, the tag will look like this:

http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/site/zone;key=value;sz=728x90;u=age_12-gen_male;ord=1234567890?

How can I include the u= value in my Ad Tags?

For every Placement, include the u= value and placeholder in the "Additional Key-Values" field and instruct the publisher where they should pass the value in.

Steps:

The "Additional Key-Values" field in the Placement allows you to add the u= value and a placeholder that will be included in the ad tag for that Placement.

Click into the applicable Placement (or follow the steps below when creating your Placement)

Add u=[Placeholder] in the "Additional Key-Values" field for each applicable Placement. (See the screenshot below for an example.)

Example DFA Ad Tags w/ u= value and dynamic value Placeholder

Example Standard Ad Tag:

HREF="http://ad-emea.doubleclick.net/jump/N2591.127182.CNNINTERNATIONAL/B7019024;dcadv=3795928;sz=160x600;u=[BID_ATTR.bid_id];ord=[timestamp]?">

Example iFrames/JavaScript Ad Tag:

HREF="http://ad-emea.doubleclick.net/jump/N2591.127182.CNNINTERNATIONAL/B7019024;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;dcadv=3795928;sz=160x600;u=[BID_ATTR.bid_id];ord=[timestamp]?">

</NOSCRIPT>

</IFRAME>

Example JavaScript Ad Tag:

HREF="http://ad-emea.doubleclick.net/jump/N2591.127182.CNNINTERNATIONAL/B7019024;dcadv=3795928;sz=160x600;u=[BID_ATTR.bid_id];ord=[timestamp]?">

</NOSCRIPT>

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Sharing Advertiser

Advertisers can be "shared". Shared Advertisers are built on a parent-child relationship. The child advertiser inherits the Floodlight configuration of the parent advertiser. To share Advertisers, click the Share button under the Floodlight Configuration tab.

Before sharing an Advertiser, please consider the following:

* To inherit the parent's Floodlight set-up, the child Advertiser must be empty. Advertisers with already existing Floodlight activities cannot be shared.

* Modifications to shared Floodlight tags can only be made in the parent Advertiser.

* Sharing cannot be undone.

In order to share a Floodlight tag configuration:

1) From the Advertiser's Tab, search for the child advertiser (the one inheriting the Floodlights).

2) Click on the child's "Floodlight Configuration" Tab

3) Press the [Share Advertiser] button

4) Search for the parent Advertiser (the advertiser that contains the main Floodlight configuration).

5) Select the parent advertiser and click Save.

Spam Clicks

DCM Engineers are investing heavily in advanced spam filtering in DCM. Spam is an issue that Google has taken very seriously since the earliest days of its business and has invested significant time and resources to combat. We'll be applying our learnings from other areas of the business to this new platform to provide the most accurate ad serving experience possible. Aside from our general our spam technology, Google recently purchased Spider.IO, an anti malware company and we are working closely with them as well other internal Google teams that specialize in spam protection to integrate their technology across our product stack, including DCM.

Customers migrating from DFA6 to DCM have reported an increase in spam clicks. Conversions and impressions are not affected, as 96% of spam clicks were identified to come from non-cookied users. Our Engineers have identified the cause and are actively working on a fix. The fix will bring parity with DFA6 in mid-May.

It is also possible that the issue is related to implementation. If you see a spike in the number of clicks for a particular Campaign or Ad, we recommend that you utilize reporting to identify the site that is driving any additional clicks. So, I'd also request you check with the Site "MNI", if they are driving a high number of clicks. If possible, request them to send the report broken down by day with Geo. Also, if you provide the live URL (instead of test page), it would help me check the implementation and update you with additional information.

Raw impression

Impressions yesterday on the UI gives the number of times yesterday (midnight to midnight, Eastern Time) that users accessed a web page that included this activity's Floodlight tag but it is just a raw data and not the actual data which may not update correctly. Even the warning signs that you see on the UI takes a few days to update even if the floodlight is fixed on the site and it collects data. You should always go with the figures in the report rather than the one on the UI.

Frequency Cap setting

If you would like to apply frequency cap to the ad so that a user would get to see the OTP only once within an hour. If yes, you can achieve this by applying frequency capping to an ad.

Below are the steps to set up frequency cap for an ad:

1. Go to the Delivery Properties section of the Ad Properties page for a new or an existing ad.

2. Enter a Frequency, which is the maximum number of times that the ad can be shown to each user during the time period you'll specify. The frequency can be any number from 1 to 15.

3. Enter a Time Period, which is the number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks before the frequency cap is reset for each user. The maximum is 129,600 minutes (2,160 hours, 90 days, or 12 weeks).

4. Choose the correct unit of time from the drop-down list: Minutes, Hours, Days, or Weeks.

Floodlight tag and Google AdWords

Floodlight tags accept Google AdWords Conversion Tracking as part of their dynamic tags. There are just few things to bear in mind when implementing this:

1) Each AdWords Account will be linked to one DoubleClick Floodlight Tag.

2) You can choose to integrate the Full Javascript Tag or the 1x1 Pixel as either a "Publisher" tag or a "Default" tag. The Google code will only send a conversion signal if the user clicked on a Google ad within the account.

3) If you need to use more than one Google AdWords Account, please make note of the following exceptions:
- You/Your client will need to generate the AdWords Conversion Tracking code for each account that your advertiser wants to track conversion activity.
- You will need to use "Publisher" tags for each account and will be required to associate the "Publisher's Site" in the Floodlight interface with the "site" that is used in the DFA creative tag. These must be two separate publishers as the pixels cannot fire at the same time.

When deciding where to place your Google AdWords Conversion Tracking, you should consider the differences between the two types of dynamic tags:

- Default Section
The pixel will fire every single time someone hits the conversion page. The AdWords Conversion Tracking code will only record a conversion if it can detect that the user has a cookie that ties to the advertiser's AdWords campaign.

I.e.: If a user clicks on a Google ad, then goes to NY Times and clicks on the advertiser's ad as part of a direct buy with the NY Times, DoubleClick will credit the NY Times with the conversion but Google will count the conversion, too, because the user has a Google cookie tied to the campaign that came from the first click.

- Publisher Section
This method requires that the advertiser is using DCM click tracking or 3PAS tags. When they create the click trackers or 3PAS tags, they will assign the site of those tags to the 'Google Display Network'. In their publisher section, they will then implement our conversion pixel under the same site name of 'Google Display Network'. This lets the Floodlight code do the heavy lifting and it will detect that the user who just converted came from a click that was associated with one of the click or 3PAS tags that they have assigned to the 'Google Display Network' and will then fire the conversion code associated with that site. This might lead to more accurate conversion numbers as Google will only be asked to count a conversion when DoubleClick tells it to count a conversion (eliminating the discrepancy example above) but if there is a longer Look-back window than 30 days, they are not using DCM click/3pas tracking or if they do not have their tagging set up properly the values will be completely off.

Monday, December 19, 2016

%P macros

Syntax errors on the %p macros used inside the 3rd party pixel are preventing the pixels from working as intended.

General %p syntax: %p[start_key_string]![end_character]

The [end_character] should be defined. The end character tells the macro "stop passing values when you hit this character".

Your Floodlight tag looks like follows:

{Insert Floodlight tag that is suffering the issue, with values included if possible}

In the 3rd party pixel, our %p macros are expecting an ending character that will tell them when stop reading, however, this is not implemented at the moment. As a result, when our macro starts reading the value that is coming after the parameter {name of the parameter}, for example, it just keeps reading till the end of the line.

This erros is preventing the pixels from tracking properly. To fix this, add an end character for each %p macros. The [end_character] is typically a semicolon (;) or a question mark (?) to end the string. For example:

- Quantity: %pqty=!;

- Revenue: %pcost=!;

- Order ID: %pord=!?

For more information on DCM macros, please go through the following links.
https://support.google.com/dcm/table/6096962?hl=en&visit_id=1-636177386777577723-156265568&rd=2

https://support.google.com/dcm/answer/2837696?hl=en