Collect Media Exposure Data from Advertising DSP Campaigns

Advertisers with Advertising DSP only

Advertisers with an Adobe Advertising-Adobe Audience Manager Integration Only

This document explains how to tag Advertising DSP ads to capture cookie-based impression and click events using Audience Manager pixels, and additional tasks necessary to use the data.

The event pixels don’t capture events that occur in cookie-less environments, such as mobile apps and connected TV (CTV).

Step 1: Set Up a Data Source in Audience Manager set-up-data-source

In Audience Manager, create a data source for the DSP impression and click data. Include the data source ID in each event tag so that all tracked events are attributed to the data source.

NOTE
It’s possible to collect all impression and click data for advertising campaigns running on multiple DSPs within a single data source.

Step 2: Implement Impression and Click Event Pixels on Webpages implement-dsp-pixels

Advertisers can create and implement event tags for their own brands. If necessary, contact your Adobe Audience Manager consultant or your Adobe Account Team for support.

NOTE
If your organization uses Analytics tracking, then you may not need Audience Manager click tracking. Adobe Analytics captures click signals and can send them to Audience Manager through server-side forwarding.

Pixel Syntax

Event pixels must include the following parameters.

Impression-tracking pixels:

[Audience Manager customer domain].demdex.net/event?d_event=imp&d_src=[source id]&d_campaign=${TM_CAMPAIGN_ID_NUM}

with optional additional parameters prefixed with &

Click-tracking pixels:

[Audience Manager customer domain].demdex.net/event?d_event=click&d_src=[source id]&d_rd=[redirect URL]&d_campaign=${TM_CAMPAIGN_ID_NUM}

with optional additional parameters prefixed with &

Where:

  • [Audience Manager customer domain] is the domain name that will send impression or click events to Adobe.

  • [source id] is the ID for the data source in which you track DSP impression and click data.

  • [redirect URL] is the double-encoded redirect URL. If you’re using an online encoding tool, such as www.urlencoder.org, then run the string through the encoder and re-encode the result.

  • ${TM_CAMPAIGN_ID_NUM} is the numeric campaign ID in DSP. If you want to hardcode an individual campaign ID instead of using the DSP macro, then locate the ID in the campaign settings.

  • Each parameter is prefixed with & and is in the format d_parameter=parameter_id, where parameter is replaced by the key-value pair for the new field. Example: &d_placement=${TM_PLACEMENT_ID_NUM}

Parameters as Key-Value Pairs parameters

Format: d_parameter=parameter_id

where:

* the parameter is prefixed by `&`

* `parameter` is replaced by the key-value pair for the new field

Example:  `&d_placement=${TM_PLACEMENT_ID_NUM}`

Both types of pixel can contain additional parameters as key-value pairs to collect traits or to provide campaign metadata (such as a placement name or a campaign name) for other reports. A key-value pair consists of two related elements: a key, which is a constant that defines the data set, and a value, which is a variable that belongs to the set.

In the key-value pair, the value variable can be either a hard-coded ID or a macro, which is a small unit of self-contained code that is dynamically replaced with the corresponding values when the ad tag loads for campaign and user tracking. For campaign-related parameters, you can use DSP macros instead of Audience Manager macros to send campaign attributes together with the corresponding impression or click data to Audience Manager, using a single pixel across all ads. The DSP macros that you insert into your event pixels must be appropriate values for the key-value pairs you include within the pixels. For example, for the d_placement key, you’d use the DSP macro ${TM_PLACEMENT_ID_NUM} as the value to capture placement IDs generated by the Adobe Advertising macro.

For a list of macros that Audience Manager supports for impression event pixels, see “Capturing Campaign Impression Data via Pixel Calls.”

For a list of macros that Audience Manager supports for click event pixels, see “Capturing Campaign Click Data via Pixel Calls.”

TIP
  • The best practice is to include the campaign, placement, creative (ad), and site IDs so you can use the campaign attributes to create Audience Manager traits.
  • To create Audience Optimization reports, additional parameters are required.
  • In the key-value pairs, replace the values with the relevant DSP macros so you can use a single pixel across all ads in all campaigns. For example, change d_campaign=[%campaignID%]to d_campaign=${TM_CAMPAIGN_ID_NUM} to capture campaign IDs generated by the Adobe Advertising macro.
  • You can create your own parameters with hardcoded values, if needed. Example: d_DSP=AdCloud

Example of an impression event pixel:

http://acme.demdex.net/event?d_event=imp&d_src=1052880&d_site=${TM_SITE_ID_NUM}&d_creative=${TM_AD_ID_NUM}&d_placement=${TM_FEED_ID_NUM}&d_campaign=${TM_CAMPAIGN_ID_NUM}&d_DSP=AdCloud&d_bust=${TM_RANDOM}

Where to Add the Pixels

Impression-Tracking Pixel

Attach an impression event-tracking pixel to all ads in your DSP campaigns. You can do so in any of the following places:

  • At the placement level, which applies the pixel by default to all ads in the placement. In the Tracking section of the placement settings, add the pixel in the Event pixels field.

  • At the ad level, which overrides any placement-level event pixels. In the ad settings, create an event pixel on the Pixel tab.

  • (For ads on a third-party ad server) At the ad level within the ad server.

Click-Tracking Pixel

Within the ad server, insert the click event pixel (with the encoded URL appended) wherever you normally insert the ad’s click-through URL.

Step 3: Post-Implementation Tasks

Once the event tags are implemented, data flows into the Audience Manager data collection servers. Complete the following tasks before you can use the data in reports.

Create an Amazon S3 Bucket and Data Source

Once your data is on the Audience Manager servers, you must create an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket, and then a data source, to which all pixel data is sent. Contact your Audience Manager consultant or Customer Care if you need support.

Create Audience Manager Traits and Segments

Your event data flows into Audience Manager as unused signals. Manually create rule-based traits from the ingested data, and then create segments using those traits, before you can use the data in reports.

Example trait that populates user-level data for users exposed to a specific creative in DSP:

  1. Identify the event as d_event = imp.
  2. Identify the creative ID within the DSP campaign, and then map it to the trait as d_creative=[Creative ID].

Trait creation screen

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