How do I track click for Flash/SWF ads?

Flash ads (SWF files) should not use a static link for the click button, it should use clickTAG parameter, which is the industry-standard for click tracking. clickTAG is used across all ad servers to track clicks of Flash/SWF ads. Our ad server will ask for the actual click URL when you create the SWF ad in your account.

Conversion

The original ActionScript 2 code for the button instance may look something like this:

on (release) {
  getURL("https://www.example.com/","_top");
}

After the conversion for click tracking, it should look like this:

on (release) {
  if (_root.clickTAG.substr(0,4) == "http") {
    getURL(_root.clickTAG,_root.TargetAS);
  }
}

For ActionScript 3, MyClickButton is the name of the button instance and the code should look like this:

MyClickButton.addEventListener(
  MouseEvent.CLICK,
  function():void {
    if (root.loaderInfo.parameters.clickTAG.substr(0,4) == "http") {
      navigateToURL(
        new URLRequest(root.loaderInfo.parameters.clickTAG),
        root.loaderInfo.parameters.TargetAS
      );
    }
  }
);

If you would like to know more technical details, please review the official instructions from Adobe Flash. For greater compatibility, our system uses "_root.clickTAG" instead of "clickTAG". Because Flash ads can be served within IFRAMEs, it's best to use target _top or _blank for getURL() function. For security, your code must check for a valid URL instead of allowing a possible malicious JavaScript code.

Sample Code

You can view this tutorial to create a SWF ad with clickTAG tracking from scratch. Or you can download these sample Macromedia .FLA files to compare:

• Original files with a fixed URL and without click tracking:

  sample.fla (SWF: sample.swf)

• After conversion, the files use clickTAG parameter for dynamic click tracking:

  sample-clickTAG.fla (SWF: sample-clickTAG.swf)

• Also, please use this template to manually convert to clickTAG if our system failed to convert your SWF file automatically.

Troubleshoot and Test a SWF file for clickTAG

It is recommended to test all Flash ads for click tracking via clickTAG before allowing it to display online. Learn More