Standard Action Tracking
Standard action tracking enables you to associate actions with a creative for the advertiser who owns the creative. The creative can be recently seen or clicked by a web site visitor. This feature is useful for monetizing behaviors such as leading a web site visitor from an advertisement to a landing page where a transaction (such as a product purchase) subsequently occurs.
Note: The action-tracking URL needs to be placed on the action success page (the landing or results page) so that when the page is reached by the visitor, the URL can notify SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers to count it.
FCID Tracking
The syntax for an action-tracking URL associated with a viewed or clicked creative is as follows:
http://{adserver domain}/{custid}/count/act=3/fcid={FCID}
where {FCID} is replaced with the creative's FCID value. The code /act=3 tells SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers that this is a standard action-tracking, counting URL. The FCID value can be found in the user interface next to the name of the creative at the bottom of the Edit Flight page.
ADVID Tracking
The syntax for an action-tracking URL associated with an advertiser whose creative has been seen or clicked is:
http://{adserver domain}/{custid}/count/act=3/advid={ADVID}
where {ADVID} is replaced with the advertiser's ADVID value. The ADVID value can be found in the URL of the Edit Advertiser page.
Site and area values are not needed in the action-tracking URL because they are captured at the time of the impression or click that preceded the action.
For the default action (act=3), the ad server automatically tracks impressions and clicks for any flight that has a CPA set to a value > 0.00. Flights without a CPA or with CPA=0.0 are not tracked.
With the action-tracking URLvisitor's history of tracked flights for advertiser 50 is examined. The flight creative with the most recent click or impression is credited with the action. If a flight has multiple creatives with recent clicks or impressions, the one with the most recent click is credited. Clicks that are older than 15 days are ignored. Impressions older than one day are ignored. If there are no flights with a qualifying click or impression, then the action is ignored.
The 15-day window for clicks and one-day window for impressions are configurable per customer and extend to all flights.
Standard action counts are available in BI reports and operational reports. The Custom Action report shows custom action activity. It does not show standard action-tracking counts.
Example:
This URL searches the visitor's history for a flight associated with advertiser 12 that has the most recent click or impression.
The value act=3 is assumed if any of the other action-related tags are present (advid, actid, or actname).
The value act=1 continues to be for impression beacon counts and the value act=2 is for click counts.
Custom Action Tracking
Custom action tracking enables you to create and track custom actions (for example, tracking whether a web site visitor has viewed 50% of a video). Note that custom action tracking requires completion of the Action Policies section of the Edit Flight page (shown below), whereas standard action tracking does not. Standard action tracking simply requires a value entered in the Cost Per Action field in the Goals and Revenue section of the Edit Flight page.
- Impressions are tracked for each flight with an action policy that covers impressions or clicks. Flights without an action policy are not tracked unless the action-tracking URL contains a valid FCID value, in which case the custom action is logged even without a Custom Action Policy enabled for the flight.
- The active period for impressions or clicks are controlled by the action policy that is set for each action on the flight. Each action has its own policy that governs impressions and clicks per flight.
- An action is triggered by a COUNT directive that references an advertiser and a custom action. The custom action is referenced by ID or name.
- The flight creative that has the most recent active tracked impression or click is credited. If the flight has both a click and an impression, the more recent of the two determines which is credited unless the policy has the Click trumps impressions option set, in which case the click is credited regardless of which is more recent.
- Counts for custom actions are logged by date, FCID, action ID, attribution type, site, and area. Attribution type is either 0 (for impression) or 1 (for click). Site and area are logged as the original site and area that were associated with the credited impression or click when it occurred.
- Counts for custom actions are currently not displayed in the Conversions columns when you are viewing flights.
- The revenue associated with custom actions (set in each policy) is not considered by the engine in daily revenue cap decisions.
- Changes to Custom Action policies are not displayed when you click the View History button for a flight.
Custom action counts are available only in the Custom Action report. They are not available in BI reports.
Custom Actions must be associated with the advertiser in order for the Custom Action to appear in the Action Policies dropdown menu in the Edit Flight screen. Custom Actions can be assigned to an advertiser at Customers -> Advertisers -> {advertiser name}.
Examples:
The custom action URL can use either the custom action's actid value or its name (actname). If both actid and actname are present, then the actname is ignored. To find the actid value for a custom action, edit the custom action and check the URL for the Edit Action page.
This URL searches the visitor's history for a flight associated with advertiser 12 that has the most recent click or impression. Only flights that have policies for the action with the actid=4 tag are considered. The act=3 tag is not required.
This URL searches the visitor's history for a flight associated with advertiser 13 that has the most recent click or impression. Only flights that have policies for the action with the name "Videostart" are considered.
Note that there are some pre-defined actions available in the user interface.
You can create additional custom actions in the Custom Actions tab under the Traffic tab.
Actions can be assigned or removed for each advertiser in the Customers -> Advertisers page.
Read Usage Note 53240: Action Tracking (Standard and Custom) to check for any updates to the info above.
