Overview
With Click ID based conversion tracking, a third party tool can notify Equativ about a conversion which was related to a campaign served with Equativ.
The tracked conversions are attributed to clicks based on a unique click ID (transaction ID) generated by Equativ. The third party tool is responsible for doing the attribution between click and conversion, and then notifying Equativ.
Equativ provides appropriate conversion reports for the publisher to optimize the performance (conversion rate).
Integration types
The table below indicates if this article is relevant for your type of integration with Equativ.
Use cases
- Use case 1: An advertiser implements a download tracking solution (e. g. Appsflyer, Hasoffers, Kochava) in the app and publishes the app in the app store(s). This tracking solution notifies Equativ about each download (conversion).
- Use case 2: An e-commerce advertiser is using an affiliation solution (e. g. Rakuten, CJ Affiliate, Zanox) which tracks sales on the advertiser’s websites. The affiliate solution notifies Equativ about each conversion (sale).
How it works
- the advertiser plans the campaign and sends the creatives with their clickthrough URLs to the publishers (individual clickthrough URL for each publisher)
- these clickthrough URLs redirect the user to:
- the app store (download tracking use case)
- the e-commerce websites (sales tracking use case)
- the publisher sets up the campaign: creation of insertions, upload of creatives with the clickthrough URL provided by the advertiser etc.
- the publisher adds the parameter transaction_id= to the clickthrough URL and defines the macro [sas_transactionid] as the parameter’s value; result: transaction_id=[sas_transactionid]. The transaction_id= parameter may also be called clickid= or just cid= depending on the requirements of the third party tool
- when the ad is served, Equativ will replace the macro [sas_transactionid] by a unique transaction ID; example: transaction_id=123456789 (or clickId=123456789 or cid=123456789); The [sas_transactionid] macro will always render a unique Base64 encoded value for each unique click
- the publisher puts the insertions online
- Equativ logs each click together with the individual unique transaction ID and redirects the user to the landing page (app store/e-commerce website) while attaching the transaction ID to this redirect
- the advertiser logs the passed transaction ID
- the user converts (downloads/installs the app/makes a purchase online)
- the advertiser’s download tracking solution/e-commerce website fires Equativ’s postback URL including the transaction ID to notify Equativ about the recorded conversion (download/purchase); read about the format below: "Postback call"
- Equativ logs this postback call with the transaction ID and provides the results in reports (ratio between clicks and conversions etc.)
- based on the reporting data, the publisher can optimize the campaign
Postback call
Format of the postback call
http://www.smartadserver.com/track/download?transactionid=[sas_transactionid]
Where
[sas_transactionid] represents the ID generated by Equativ when the user clicked on the ad.
A correct postback call will return a HTTP 200 OK response with a 1x1 pixel
Invalid and duplicate postback calls
Equativ counts the conversion each time the third party platform fires the download pixel. Prior to firing the postback call, the third party platform (download tracking solution/affiliate solution) is responsible for:
- the validation of the transaction
- the deduplication of duplicate transactions, which may occur due to accidental user action, server glitches or some form of fraud
Equativ will discard postback calls with erroneous transaction IDs or transaction IDs which were not generated by Equativ through the macro [sas_transactionid]). Such incorrect postback calls will return a server error. Equativ will not count these conversions in reports.
Setup in Equativ UI
- prepare your insertion (see Insertions: General settings)
- upload the creative as usual (see Configuring creatives)
- define the creative’s Click URL (read warning "About the click URL" below)
- confirm with the advertiser which parameter in the clickthrough URL is responsible for receiving Equativ’s transaction ID/click ID; typically, the parameter is transactionid=, clickid= or cid=
- if the parameter is not present, append it to the clickthrough URL (including the macro) as follows: &transactionid=[sas_transactionid] or &clickid=[sas_transactionid] or &cid=[sas_transactionid]; the macro [sas_transactionid] ensures that Equativ's transaction ID is pushed into the advertiser's click ID parameter
- put the insertion online
About the click URL
The URL must be a direct URL to the advertiser’s landing page or a static click command; a static click command is a URL provided to a publisher by a third party (typically an agency) to count the click and then redirect to the advertiser’s landing page; in a static click command, the landing page is part of the query string parameters (following the first “?” character in the URL); a static click command could look as follows: https://agency.advertising_system.com/abc/clk/12345;678910;z?https://advertiser.landing_page.com/page/?key1=value1&key2=value2&transaction_id=[sas_transactionid]
Note that dynamic click commands are not supported; in a dynamic click command, the landing page is not part of the click command URL; instead, the dynamic click command looks up the advertiser’s landing page in the third party system and then redirects to the landing page; for instance, the following dynamic click command would not work:
https://agency.advertising_system.com/abc/clk/12345;678910;k?transaction_id=[sas_transactionid]
Downloads as an insertion goal (volume)
For insertions with the priority levels High, Normal and Low, you can specify a goal (volume) for the insertion.
The field is located on the Delivery section:
In the example above, the insertion has a goal (volume) of 1000 downloads.
Downloads as an insertion goal is available as soon as there is at least one creative template in the network with "download" as an "Eligible Interaction for Delivery".
Example for such a creative template:
Equativ has added "download" to the Eligible Interactions for Delivery in all official creative templates. If you develop customized creative templates on your own, make sure you add it to the creative template to be able to set download goals.
Reports
To generate reports with click ID based conversions:
- go to Reports > Create a report
- in the Report columns section, specify the time frame and columns (aggregation/breakdown); read about limitations below
- switch to the Metrics section
- expand the Interactions section
- under User interactions, select the Download metric
At this time, Equativ's reporting supports only one conversion event named “download” (for cost per download (CPD) campaigns). Equativ will add additional conversion events soon.
Report limitations
Reports with the "Downloads” metric only work with the breakdowns: per Creative / Insertion / Time / etc. They cannot be broken down per Site / Page.
If you require specific breakdowns, Equativ can provide you with the raw data (click and conversion logs) so that you can do the breakdowns in your own reporting tool. Get back to your service contact at Equativ to request these logs.
