Create Floodlight activities and tags

Campaign Manager 360 now supports the Google tag for Floodlight measurement. We’re recommending that customers update their Floodlight tag implementation to use the Google tag in order to benefit from the latest features and integrations.

Once you've set up your advertiser's Floodlight configuration, you can create Floodlight activities.

Floodlight activities correspond to specific events you’d like to track, such as conversions on your website or adding users to audience lists. For each event, you’ll create a new Floodlight activity. Campaign Manager 360 creates the tags that your website administrator will add directly on your site to track each event.

Each Floodlight activity must be associated with a Floodlight activity group, which is used to group activities together in reports.

Advertiser with activities cannot be shared

Once you create an activity or activity group for an advertiser, you lose the option to share that advertiser.

Floodlight tag options

There are three primary options for Floodlight activity tag formats:

  • Google tag (recommended): The Google tag can be implemented across Google products, making Floodlight implementation easier. It’s a JavaScript tag that’s placed on every page of your website. If you’re using Floodlight tags directly on your desktop or mobile site for conversion or remarketing events, we recommend using the Google tag. Learn more
  • Iframe tags: Use iframe tags if you’re unable to adopt the Google tag. Iframe tags are only added to pages with events you’re tracking. Learn more
  • Image tags: Use image tags if you’re unable to adopt Google tags or iframe tags. Image tags are only added to pages with events you’re tracking. Learn more

More details about each tag format

Tag format Works across Google products Available in apps Supports dynamic tags in Campaign Manager 360
Google tag Yes No Yes
Iframe tags No Yes Yes
Image tags No Yes No

Create Floodlight activities

Follow these steps to create a new Floodlight activity for every event you want to track. You also have the option to create and edit floodlight activities using a bulk sheet.

  1. From an advertiser, click Floodlight > Activities.
  2. Click New.
  3. Name your Floodlight activity. 
  4. (Optional) Select Play install tracking if you’re using the Floodlight activity to track app installs from Google Play.
  5. Enter the URL where you plan to add the tag in the Expected URL. This can help you identify where the tag for your Floodlight activity has been placed.
  6. Choose a Type, either counter or sales. Learn more
  7. Assign the activity to an Activity group or create a new one. Keep in mind that Campaign Manager 360 only shows activity groups for the type you've selected for the activity.
  8. Pick a Counting method for conversions. The options available depend on whether you’re creating a counter or sales activity.
    Counter activities Sales activities
    • Standard: Counts every conversion
    • Unique: Counts the first conversion for each unique user during each 24-hour day. 
    • Per session: Counts one conversion per user per session. You can define the length of a session for your site.
    • Transactions: Counts all conversions, plus the total number of sales that take place and the total associated revenue.
    • Items sold: Counts each conversion, plus the total number of items sold and the total associated revenue.
  9. Select a Tag format from the options described above. For Google Tag Manager users, this setting determines what underlying tag format will be sent to your container when pushing activities to Google Tag Manager. If you choose iframe or Google tag, Tag Manager will use an iframe tag. If you choose image, Tag Manager will use image tags.
  10. Click next to Enable for attribution to enable attribution on the Floodlight activity. All attribution will stop for the activity if you disable this.
  11. (Optional) If you’re using Google Tag Manager to manage your Floodlight activities, follow the instructions to push tags to your container. Learn more
  12. (Optional) Set any Advanced properties you want to add:
    • Require SSL-compliant tags: This setting makes it required for Floodlight tags to be implemented on a secure site and that your tag doesn't call non-secure content. It is required by default. That means you won’t be able to add code that calls any URL beginning with http. Learn about SSL compliance or how to resolve Floodlight compliance issues.
    • Activity tag string: Add a custom key-value that identifies the Floodlight activity, or leave this field blank to use a default value based on the activity name. This value cannot be changed after saving your activity.
    • For iframe and image tags only:
      • Generate XHTML-compliant tags: Select this option if your website requires XHTML validation. 
      • Use cache busting: This option inserts a random string into each image request URL to prevent browsers from retrieving a cached version. This ensures that each visit to a tagged page generates a new impression.
  13. Include any Custom Floodlight variables you’ve created and would like to use for this activity. Learn more
  14. Save your activity.

Once you’ve saved your Floodlight activity, click the Floodlight tag preview section to see a preview for the tag. Do not use the preview that’s available before you save the tag; this is just a sample of the tag. All of the fields for your tag will be populated after you save.

Create or edit Floodlight activities or audiences using a bulk sheet

  1. From an advertiser click Floodlight > Activities or Audience (depending on what you'd like to edit or upload)
  2. Click Bulk sheet > Download
    1. Choose Audiences, Floodlight activities, or both
  3. Download and edit the sheet. The download will be a .zip file containing an Excel file (.xls) with tabs for Floodlight Activities, Audiences or both
  4. Go back to your advertiser in Campaign Manager 360 and click Floodlight > Activities or Audience
  5. Click Bulk sheet > Upload
  6. Click Browse and select the completed spreadsheet, or drag and drop your spreadsheet onto the page. When the upload is complete you’ll have the option to download results to view your sheet with status details.

Considerations

  • Leave the ID field blank when creating new Floodlight activities or audiences.
  • Do not edit the “Last Modified Time” column for existing rows. Leave this column blank for new rows. 
  • When exporting more than 10,000 rows (across all tabs), the download will be split into more than one file. You can upload these files individually after editing.
  • See bulk sheets developer resources for more information.
  • When uploading "Floodlight default tags" or "Floodlight publisher tags" rows, the corresponding parent "Floodlight activities" row should be uploaded in the same sheet.
  • "Name" and "Activity tag string" should be unique when creating a new Floodlight activity.

Create Floodlight activity groups

You can create Floodlight activity groups while you’re setting up new Floodlight activities, or follow these steps to create one separately:

  1. From an advertiser, click Floodlight > Activity groups.
  2. Click New.
  3. In the row that appears, name your group.
  4. Choose either counter or sales as the activity type. Learn more
  5. Enter a tag string, which is used to identify the activity group. The activity group's tag string is included in the Floodlight tag.
  6. Any changes you make to the activity group are automatically saved when you click off of the row.

After you’ve created an activity group, you can click edit  to update the group’s name.

Bulk edit Floodlight activities

  1. From an advertiser, click Floodlight > Activities.
  2. Select the activities you want to update.
  3. For the field you want to update, click on the dropdown at the top of the page.
    1. To bulk edit the status of Floodlight activities, click on the “Status” dropdown in the Summary view. 
    2. To bulk edit if attribution of Floodlight activities is enabled, click on the “Attribution status” dropdown in the Attribution view. 
  4. Select the new setting.

Considerations

  • Editing the tag format for your Floodlight activities doesn’t automatically update the tags on your website. You’ll need to ask your website administrator to remove existing tags from your website and replace them with new tags.  
  • When you change the attribution status to “Disabled”, Floodlight activities that are actively used in Display & Video 360 or Search Ads 360 will not be disabled.

Download Floodlight activity tags

Once you've created a Floodlight activity, and every time you edit an existing activity, you’ll need to download your tags in text or Excel format and send the export file to your website administrator to implement. Creating or editing the Floodlight activity doesn’t automatically update the tags on your website.

To download Floodlight tags in bulk:

  1. From an advertiser, click Floodlight > Activities.
  2. Select the Floodlight activities you want to export tags for.
  3. Click Download tags and choose from a text or Excel file.
  4. Your tags will download.

Each tag format is implemented differently:

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