Collecting media data in AAM using pixeling the creative method

One of the functions of a Data Management Platform is collecting campaign data. This collected data can be used for further targeting and advertiser analytics.

Also, before you you request your AAM consultant or customer care to enable Audience Optimization Reports in AAM, you should have media data collection implemented.

There are 2 ways to get the media data:
1) Pixel calls to AAM servers.
2) By ingestion log files from the DSP/ad platform.

In this post, we will discuss about the first method: pixeling the creative.

A: Tagging Creatives (Impression Tracking)

Recommended to tag ads run by all DSP’s

Capturing Campaign Impression Data via Pixel Calls

• One approach for sending media data to Audience Manager is to leverage ad-server macro functionality to send

campaign attributes to the Audience Manager servers.

• The event call collects impression and conversion data and sends it to the Audience Manager data collection

servers (DCS). This process relies on third-party ad servers that place the call in the creative to control what content gets inserted into the code. The third-party ad servers can place this code within each ad impression.

• Event calls consist of key-value pairs that look like the following example. In the key-value pair, the value variable is an ID or macro inserted by the ad server. When the ad tag loads, the ‘%macro%’ gets replaced with the required, corresponding values. (Note: This call does not return a response)

Sample Pixel For AAM customers:

http://<subdomain>.demdex.net/event?d_event=imp&d_src=123456&d_site=%siteID%&d_creative=%creativeID%&d_adgroup=%adGroupID%&d_placement=%placecmentID%&d_campaign=%campaignID%

During Run-time:

http://<subdomain>.demdex.net/event?d_event=imp&d_src=123456&d_site=11111&d_creative=2222&d_adgroup=3333&d_placement=4444&d_campaign=5555&d_cb=6666

• Note: Above part highlighted in blue will not change.
• Many of the key value pairs are optional. Refer the Main Key Values table.

Base pixel illustration and mandatory data (key-value pairs)

http://<subdomain>.demdex.net

/event?

d_event=imp

&d_src=123456

&d_site=glitzIndia

&d_creative=creative_shape_device_500_250

&d_campaign=prod_retargeting_sep_2018

Key Values Table

Impression Tagging Steps:

1. Check available macros in your adserver / DSP

2. Create the template for impression pixels & check redirects (if needed)
    See online help (https://adobe.ly/2kMRExK) & check with your Adobe consultant

3. Implement pixels/ redirect in creatives from a test campaign

4. Check macros are replaced as expected

5. Make rule-based traits with the ID’s. Use the unused signals report to take values for rule based traits.

6. Implement and traffic on live campaigns

B: Tagging Creatives (Click Tracking)

Capturing Campaign Click Data via Pixel Calls

Click tracking enables measurement of visitor engagement throughout your campaign, as it records click-based

activity for third-party creatives. Similar to impressions tracking, an event call is sent to the Audience Manager

data collection servers (DCS) for processing. The visitor is then redirected to the intended web address.

Request

http://<subdomain>.demdex.net/event?d_event=click& d_src=405928 &d_adgroup=adgroup_id&d_creative=123

&d_rd=https://example.com/homepage

Response

• In the response, the browser will then be redirected to the URL specified in the d_rd parameter with the appropriate values specified by any macros, if used, as explained below.
• Based on the above example, the browser is redirected to the following URL: https://example.com/homepage

Click tracking calls require that the following parameters be present:

• d_event=click, an Audience Manager call classification.
• d_rd, which will contain the redirect link in URL encoded format.
• In addition, the call can contain key value pairs that can be used for trait qualification

Supported Macros

Macro support is provided for these types of calls. A macro is key value pair that is dropped when the ad tag loads for campaignand user tracking. The macros will be passed along with the destination URL, as long as they are marked with the following format:%macro%. Some of these elements do not have macros. They accept a hard coded ID value instead.

ID Sync – Trigger an ID match between cookie id and customer id (optional)

• If you want to include ID sync within the pixel, then please add the ‘d_cid’ parameter within it. Please see below sample examples:
• http://<subdomain>.demdex.net/event?d_event=imp&d_src=123456&d_cid=myHashedCustomerID&d_site=11111&d_creative=2222&d_adgroup=3333&d_placement=4444&d_campaign=5555&d_cb=6666
• The GREEN portion of the above is the datasource for the ID sync.
• The PURPLE portion should be the auto-generated that would note the id of the authenticated user or
• customer id.
• AAM does not accept any PII data, so ensure that the customer id is hashed
• NOTE: ID sync’s are useful when tagging mobile app impressions. But mobile app impressions goes to different
• data sources (one for android and other for iOS). Please reach out to AAM consultant or Adobe Client Care in
• case any questions

Macros Example for Click Tracking:

This example demonstrates passing creative, adgroup, and placement macros.

This example assumes that the following values for each parameter are passed in the non-redirect portion of the click-tracking call:

• creative=1111
• campaign=2222
• adgroup=3333
• placement=4444

Request:

http://<subdomain>.demdex.net/event?d_event=click&d_src=405928&d_creative=1111&d_campaign=2222&d_adgroup=3333&d_placement=4444&d_rd=http%3A%2F%2example.com/%2Fcallback%3Fcreative%3D%25d_creative%25%26campaign%3D%25d_campaign%25%26adgroup%3D%25d_adgroup%25%26d_placement%3D%25placement%25

Note: Above part highlighted in Blue will not change

Response:

Based on the above example, the browser is redirected to the following URL:

http://example.com/callback?creative=1111&campaign=2222&adgroup=3333&placement=4444

Some Considerations

• Option 1 covers clicks & impressions & works in https protocol as well
• Require rule-based traits to be created to collect data (ideally before campaign starts)
• If 2 similar hits happen within 1 sec (e.g. 2 ads from same campaign under same placement id), frequency of the related traits is incremented by only 1
• If you do not have a value for any key value pair, you can set to to ‘-1’
• To feed Audience Optimization reports
• Metadata files to be imported on top of pixel / logs (to give friendly names in reporting)
• Mandatory parameters required in pixels (required data is already present in logs)