Link placements to Campaign Manager 360 via execution channels

Planning enables you to link inventory in a media plan to one or more Campaign Manager 360 campaigns. This link is called an execution channel. It identifies a location where your placements can be executed.

This article describes how to use an execution channel to push inventory to Campaign Manager 360 and then execute the plan. You can also use an execution channel to pull in changes made to inventory within Campaign Manager 360 and reconcile the differences. (Note that structural changes to placement groups in Campaign Manager 360 that have already been linked to placement groups in Planning cannot be imported.) Learn more about reconciling differences with Campaign Manager 360.

Note: If you linked a campaign when you created your project, an execution channel was automatically created for you. If you want to sync with that campaign, skip to Push placements to Campaign Manager 360, below.

You can also create a new campaign in Campaign Manager 360 directly from Planning. See step 6 below.

Create a new execution channel

If the inventory in your media plan is not already linked to a Campaign Manager 360 campaign, follow these steps to create a new execution channel.

1. Click Execution in the left menu area.
2. Click New.
3. Name the execution channel. You can name it anything you want, but we suggest you give it the same name as your campaign.
4. Click Save. If the new channel does not appear immediately in the overview pane on the right, refresh the page.
5. Click the name of the execution channel you just created.
6. In the window that pops up, click either Choose an existing campaign or create a new campaign. Notes:
   • All the campaigns you link within a single Planning project must share the same parent advertiser (also known as a Floodlight configuration). If you have already associated the project with a campaign, this dialog will be filtered to include only campaigns that share the same parent advertiser.
   • If you want to link the execution channel to a new campaign, you must first create the campaign in Campaign Manager 360.

➢ If you are choosing an existing campaign:

1. Another window pops up that shows the Campaign Manager 360 campaigns available to you. Click the right arrow at the top right of the window to scroll through the list.
2. Select a campaign to associate with the execution channel. You can associate one campaign from the Campaign Manager 360 account in which you’re using Planning. Note: Currently, you can’t unlink a campaign from an execution channel once you’ve made the association. This will be fixed in an upcoming release.
3. Click Save. The campaign is now associated with your execution channel. Note: Linking an existing campaign to an execution channel does not automatically import the placements from that campaign. You must execute the channel to import the placements.

➢ If you are creating a new campaign:

1. Choose a name for the campaign.
2. Select an advertiser from the drop-down list. All the campaigns you link within a single Planning project must share the same parent advertiser (also known as a Floodlight configuration). If you have already associated the project with a campaign, this dialog will be filtered to include only campaigns that share the same parent advertiser.
3. Click Save. The campaign is now associated with your execution channel. Note: Linking an existing campaign to an execution channel does not automatically import the placements from that campaign. You must execute the channel to import the placements.

When you create a campaign in Planning, it appears in Campaign Manager 360 with only the name and advertiser you’ve provided, the project’s start and end dates, and a placeholder landing page. Your trafficker should edit the landing page immediately and make any other changes needed.

Push placements to Campaign Manager 360

Once you’ve created an execution channel for a campaign, follow these steps to push the placements in the execution channel to Campaign Manager 360.

1. Determine the execution channel in which your media should run.
   1. Go to either the Inventory or Plan page and use the scroll bar at the bottom of the page to scroll to the right until you see the “Execution” column.
2. Click in this column and select an execution channel for each placement in the media plan from the list that appears.
   1. Each execution channel is limited to 1000 placements.

Execute your plan in Campaign Manager 360

Once you’ve pushed your media plan to Campaign Manager 360, follow these steps to execute it:

1. Click Execution in the menu bar.
2. Select the execution channel that you would like to execute in Campaign Manager 360.
3. Click Execute.
   1. If you have not already associated a campaign with this execution channel, you’ll be prompted to create one. Click the pencil in the “Select a campaign” box to begin.
   2. When you’ve selected a campaign, click Save.
   3. Resolve any externally added and externally edited items, review the items to be executed, and click Save.
4. If you have items in the campaign that are not present in Planning, you will be given an option to resolve differences/changes.
   1. If you have CPA-based pricing models, you'll have to select the Floodlight that will be tracked to count the activity. This must be in the Advertiser or Floodlight Configuration that you have selected.
   2. If you have placements that do not yet have sites mapped to media providers, you will also have to map these. This is a one-time mapping for each site name in Planning in each execution.

   By default, Planning shows you placements that you’ve either created or updated since the last time you executed the plan. This is useful when your plan contains a large number of placements, and you want to see only the placements that will be affected by the current execution.

5. In the last step, “Review items to be executed”, you can select which placements will be displayed. You can choose to show placements that have any of the following statuses:
   • Create/Update
   • Create
   • Update
   • No change

For more information on reconciling differences between items in Planning and in Campaign Manager 360, see Reconcile differences with Campaign Manager 360.