How can I support click tracking for external ad servers?

This feature is used when you send AdServer's ad tag to another ad server and the other ad server also wants to track clicks for this same ad.

By default, the other adserver should be able to record impressions without any problem. However, tracking clicks for ads that are generated dynamically through our iframe/javascript code is different. It requires both ad servers (AdServer and the other ad server) to support a special parameter, often call a click macro, or URL macro.

Click Macro

The click macro to use in AdServer ad tag is r=[ExternalClickTrackerLink]

http://g.adspeed.net/...&r=[ExternalClickTrackerLink]

Placing Click Macro into Ad Tag

When generating the serving code for an ad or a zone, you can enter the click macro and the cache-buster macro into the "Custom Parameters" field. For example: if the cache-buster macro is "[RANDOM_NUMBER]" and the click macro is "[ENCODED_CLICK_REDIRECT]" then enter this into the "Custom Parameters":

&cb=[RANDOM_NUMBER]&r=[ENCODED_CLICK_REDIRECT]

How It Works

This feature is reciprocal between ad servers and our system fully supports both sides. Here is the click flow:

1. Overview: AdServer -> External Ad Server -> Destination URL
2. When a visitor clicks on the ad, AdServer records this click first.
3. AdServer passes to the external click tracker, which in turn, logs this click into their system.
4. The external click tracker finally redirects visitor to the destination URL.

Requirements

The external click tracker (from the other ad server) needs to redirect visitors to the given destination URL after processing the click event. For example:

http://advertserver.com/clicktracker?goto=http://macrophotos.net

It should redirect to http://macrophotos.net after recording this click.

In the serving code generated by AdServer, you need to add a special parameter r to the IFRAME/JavaScript requests. Format:

http://g.adspeed.net/...&r=[ExternalClickTrackerLink]

Examples:

<iframe src="http://g.adspeed.net/serv/...&amp;r=http://advertserver.com/click?goto=">
...
</iframe>
or 
<script src="http://g.adspeed.net/serv/...&amp;r=http://advertserver.com/click?goto=">
</script>

Example - DoubleClick / Google Ad Manager

For DoubleClick to track clicks, they have a special parameter called "ad server macro" %%CLICK_URL_ESC%% (or %c in certain versions), which would be replaced when the ad is served with DoubleClick's click tracking link. When generating the ad serving code in AdServer, enter &r=%%CLICK_URL_ESC%% into the Custom Parameter field to allow DoubleClick to record clicks before redirect visitors to the destination link. Then, you can send this ad tag to the publishing partner to enter into its DoubleClick (DFP or Google Ad Manager) ad server.

More conveniently, you can check the box "Insert placeholders for cachebuster and click macro" then generating the ad tag, our ad server will automatically include the 2 popular and default macros.

<script src="https://g.adspeed.net/...&cb=%%CACHEBUSTER%%&r=%%CLICK_URL_ESC%%"></script>

Technical Support

If you have difficulties implementing this setup, please contact our staff with the external click tracking URL for further assistance.