Set up event tags

Set up event tags to track your ads with non-Campaign Manager 360 tracking URLs: impression pixels, click tracking URLs, and survey URLs. These URLs allow parties outside Campaign Manager 360 to log information about impressions and clicks on your ads, and to launch surveys.

On this page

• Create an event tag
• Configure event tag properties
• Guidelines for HTML5, rich media, in-stream, and VPAID

Note: You can now assign event tags from the campaign spreadsheet. Learn how to Edit a campaign by spreadsheet.

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Create an event tag

Impression event tags fire impression pixels or survey URLs. You can use them to track impressions, launch surveys, or add an Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) icon to your creative. On the other hand, click event tags fire click tracking URLs and are used to track clicks.

Use your tracking URL in multiple campaigns

Follow these steps if you need to use your tracking URL in multiple campaigns. The campaigns must all be under the same advertiser.

1. Go to All advertisers and select the advertiser where you want to create your event tag.
2. Click Properties and expand the Event tags section.
3. To create an impression event tag, go to the Advertiser tags tab under "Impression event tags".
4. To create a click event tag, go to the Advertiser tags tab under "Click event tags".
5. Click New impression event tag or New click event tag.
6. Configure your event tag properties.

Use your tracking URL in one campaign

Follow these steps if you need to use your tracking URL in only one campaign.

1. Go to All campaigns and select the campaign where you want to create your event tag.
2. Click Properties and expand the Event tags section.
3. To create an impression event tag, go to the Campaign tags tab under "Impression event tags".
4. To create a click event tag, go to the Campaign tags tab under "Click event tags".
5. Click New impression event tag or New click event tag.
6. Configure your event tag properties.

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Configure event tag properties

To set event tag properties, you must have an event tag open. If you have not created one yet, follow the steps above to create one. If you already created your event tag and want to make changes, find it in your campaign or advertiser.

Step 1 of 4: Name and enable your event tag

1. In the “Name” field, enter a name for your event tag. It may help to name the event tag based on the vendor that provided you with a tracking URL.
2. Leave the tag set to Yes in the “Enabled” menu.

Note: Never deactivate your tag unless there’s an emergency and you need to immediately stop using it for all creatives in your advertiser.

Step 2 of 4: Add your tracking URL

In the “Tag URL” field, paste the tracking URL provided by your vendor. Ensure your URL matches your event tag type. Impression event tags only support impression pixels or survey URLs, while click event tags only support click tracking URLs.

If you plan to apply an impression event tag to ads that have in-stream or VPAID creatives, check the additional guidelines for event tags and in-stream or VPAID creatives to ensure you use the proper URL.

Add or edit key-value pairs (optional)

After you enter your tracking URL, Campaign Manager 360 identifies any key-value pairs in your URL and allows you to edit them. If you have no key-value pairs in your URL, you can skip this part.

1. Edit the key or value of each key-value pair Campaign Manager 360 detects.
2. To add your own key-value pairs, click Add key-value pair.
3. The first pair is an empty key field that will correspond to the landing page. Enter the key that your vendor wishes to associate with your landing page.
   • Note: Campaign Manager 360 will automatically add your landing page URL after this key. That way, when there is a click, the browser first goes to the fourth-party URL and then redirects to the landing page. The landing page URL is either the URL in your ad properties or the URL in the creative, if you override the ad properties.
4. Click Add pair to continue adding pairs.

When adding key-value pairs, you can select macros from the macro menu or enter a custom string. For example, if you select Geographic data macro (%g), the value field populates with %g and the key field remains blank. Enter the value your vendor wants to associate with geographic information. Learn more about Campaign Manager 360 macros.

Step 3 of 4: Configure specific fields for impression and click event tags

For click event tags, you should configure the Escaping field. For impression event tags, set up the following fields:

• Application
• Tag type
• SSL

Escaping

Use escaping if your tag URL has characters that may be hard for fourth-party systems to process. Escaping replaces these characters with alternative characters or phrases that the systems can translate into the right characters. By default, your URL will be escaped once.

Select an option from the Escaping drop-down to control how many levels of additional escaping you can add to your URL:

• None: Applies no additional levels of escaping. Your landing page URL and suffix will be escaped once by default.
• One level: Adds one additional level of escaping and is for landing page URLs (and suffixes) that go to 2 fourth parties. Some URLs start with the first fourth party and then redirect to a second fourth party before they redirect to your campaign's landing page.
• Two levels: Adds 2 additional levels of escaping and is for landing page URLs (and suffixes) that go to 3 fourth parties.

Application

The Application drop-down determines whether you use the event tag in all your ads automatically. The application of your impression event tag depends on where you’ve created the tag. Advertiser-level tags are created or opened within your advertiser, while campaign-level tags are created or opened within a campaign.

For advertiser-level impression event tags:

• Select Automatic from the Application drop-down to apply the tag to all the ads in all your campaigns, unless you set an override in a particular ad or campaign.
• Select Manual from the Application drop-down if you don’t want to apply your tag anywhere. The event tag will only be used in a campaign or ad if you apply it manually. You can apply event tags manually with an override in the ad or campaign properties.

For campaign-level impression event tags:

• Select Automatic from the Application drop-down to apply the tag to all the ads in your campaign, unless you set an override for an ad in the ad properties.
• Select Manual from the Application drop-down if you don’t want to apply the tag to any ads in your campaign. Set an override in the ad properties to apply a tag manually.

Tag type

Select an option from the Tag type drop-down depending on the tracking URL type you received from your vendor:

• Image: Choose this if your URL ends with an image, such as https://www.example.com/image.jpg. An image tag returns an image, usually a 1x1 impression pixel to track impressions.
• Script: Choose this if you have a standard tracking URL and it ends with a JavaScript file, such as https://www.example.com/script.js. A script tag returns a JavaScript for the browser to execute, typically to provide more information about the impression.

Reach out to your vendor if you're unsure which tag type to choose.

SSL

If you want to track creatives on secure sites with an impression event tag, your impression pixel or survey URL must be secure. If you have placements on site URLs that start with https, your tracking URL must also start with https.

The SSL field tells you whether your impression event tag is secure and is using an SSL-compliant tracking URL (https).

• The SSL field should say "Compliant" if you have a secure impression event tag, and the event tag will be used to track creatives on secure sites.
• If the impression pixel or survey URL in your impression event tag is not secure, the SSL field will display "Not compliant".

Ask your vendor for secure versions of your impression pixels or survey URLs. Don’t change http to https in your dynamic tag because many tracking URLs have completely different secure URLs.

If Campaign Manager 360 detects that some of your sites are secure and that your tracking URL is not secure, Campaign Manager 360 will not let you apply your impression event tag to ads on those sites. Learn how to Manage SSL compliance in Campaign Manager 360.

Step 4 of 4: Allow or block sites

You have the option to allow or block up to 500 sites for your tag. That means you can pick a group of sites that this tag will either only track or never track.

1. Select an option from the Site filter drop-down.
   • No filter: Your event tag will be included for all sites.
   • Allowed sites: Your event tag will only be included with creatives that serve to allowed sites.
   • Blocked sites: Your event tag will be excluded whenever your creatives serve to blocked sites.
2. Click the Select sites to allow or Select sites to block link below the site filter menu.
3. Select up to 500 sites. You can select any site that is already in the Site Directory. Use the search bar or the "Context" menu to narrow your options.
4. Click Properties in the upper left of the site filter menu.
   • Note: Don’t save or cancel unless you wish to save or discard changes for the entire tag and exit the event tag properties.
5. The list of sites you’ve allowed or blocked for the event tag will be displayed. To add or remove sites, click Select sites. You can also remove sites by clicking the x icon next to them.

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Guidelines for HTML5, rich media, in-stream, and VPAID

HTML5 and rich media

Event tags do not capture whether the primary or backup asset receives an impression, and which exit receives a click. To log these information, follow these guidelines:

• Rich media impressions: To differentiate impressions on the rich media and backup assets, use the tracking URL fields in the rich media creative properties. Under Creative parameters, enter different URLs for the “Rich Media impressions URL” and “Backup image impressions URL” fields, so that each asset is tracked with a different URL.
• Rich media clicks: To log clicks on different exit events for non-Campaign Manager 360 parties, add third-party tracking parameters to the exit landing pages in the creative properties, under Creative events.

You can also add these parameters to the “Backup image landing page” in your creative properties, under Backup image properties.

In-stream audio, in-stream video, and VPAID creatives

Refer to the guidelines below to ensure event tags work on your in-stream audio, in-stream video, and VPAID creatives.

Parentheses in survey URLs

Don’t use parentheses in survey URLs. Survey URLs with parentheses won’t work for in-stream audio, in-stream video, and VPAID creatives. This doesn’t affect other creative types.

If your campaign uses these creatives and you wish to use non-Campaign Manager 360 surveys, create an impression event tag that doesn’t have parentheses in its survey URL. You can then apply this event tag to ads that have your VPAID or in-stream creatives.

Character limit

Don’t exceed 2,048 characters total for all the survey URLs in your impression event tags that you apply to any given in-stream or VPAID creative. This limit only affects VPAID and in-stream. Impression pixel URLs have no character limit.

You can apply multiple survey URLs if you use multiple impression event tags. Multiple survey URLs have a combined number of characters. For these creatives, that number should not exceed 2,048. If you’re unsure about your character count, paste all the survey URLs into a text editor and try a word or character count. One way is to paste them into a Google Doc and click Tools then Word count.

Upon serving, Campaign Manager 360 combines all the survey URLs in your applied impression event tags. If the combination exceeds 2,048 characters, none of your surveys will serve.

Example

Say you apply 10 survey URLs with event tags. Each survey URL is 400 characters long. The combined number of characters would be 4,000 (10 x 400), which exceeds the limit. In this case, none of the survey URLs would work for in-stream or VPAID creatives.

Survey URLs in creative properties

You can no longer edit survey URLs in the creative properties, now that event tags are available for in-stream and VPAID creatives. If your creative already has a survey URL entered in the creative properties, this URL is now uneditable. The URL will still fire, but you can’t edit it. Event tags will not apply to this creative.

As a workaround, you can copy the creative. The copy will not have your survey URL. You can then assign the copy to your ads in place of the original, and proceed to unassign the original. The event tags can now apply survey URLs to your creative.

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Related links

• Event tag setup guidelines
• Manage event tag application