Campaign Manager 360 macros

Intro to macros

What are Campaign Manager 360 macros?

Campaign Manager 360 macros are short commands that the Campaign Manager 360 ad server expands into corresponding values, such as keywords, site keynames, or URLs. Some macros help log reporting information, while other macros determine which ad is served or where the ad redirects users after a click. Most macros are just a few characters long, which makes them easy to insert into your tags.

You can insert Campaign Manager 360 macros into various contexts, including a landing page URL, a click tracker tag, a redirect URL, the HTML of a creative, a frame header, or a Floodlight tag. The macro may expand when the ad is served or after other events, such as a Floodlight call. It may also expand dynamically (with user-specific information). It depends which macro you use and where you insert it.

Not every macro works in every context. If you insert a macro into an unsupported source, the Campaign Manager 360 ad server may not expand the macro properly. Use the table below to match macros with the right sources. For example, Campaign Manager 360 ad servers will expand the %g macro if you insert it in your landing page URLs, but they won't expand this macro if you insert it in a click tracker tag.

General info

• Campaign Manager 360 macros are case-sensitive. Always type them in lowercase. For example, %c is a valid macro, while %C is not.

• You can use separators between macros, but it isn't necessary. If you do use separators, use a comma (,) or a pipe (|). Avoid using other separators unless you're an experienced trafficker, as some can cause problems if used in the wrong context.

• To edit macros in vendor tracking URLs, use event tags. Here's the basic process:

  • First, create an event tag in Campaign Manager 360. Then add your vendor tracking URL to the event tag. This can be a click-tracking URL, impression pixel, or survey URL. You can easily add or remove macros from your tracking URL in the event tag properties in Campaign Manager 360 .

  • Once your event tag is ready, you can apply it to your ads. Your ads will use the tracking URL in your event tag when they serve. Campaign Manager 360 makes it easy to apply your event tag to many ads at once. For example, you can set your event tag to apply automatically to all the ads in your campaign. To get started, follow the steps in the event tag guide.

• The only version of the expand macro that works in Floodlight tags is %ers!. Learn more

Macro types

%c — Click string macro

The %c macro expands into the Campaign Manager 360 click string in your creative's landing page URL. A click string is the part of a landing page URL that points your browser to the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers.

Use %c_esc instead of %c if you need to use an escaped version of the click string in a custom creative. Campaign Manager 360 click strings use ampersands (&), which may cause problems if you work with third-party servers.

Note that the %c macro will not expand to include click event tags for custom display creatives. 

How click strings work: When a user clicks on a creative, the browser is pointed to the landing page URL. The click string redirects the browser to the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers before sending it to the advertiser's landing page. Campaign Manager 360 adds the click string to your click-through URL automatically at the time of each impression.

If you manually add a landing page URL to the HTML of a custom creative, you may need to add the %c macro to ensure that clicks redirect to the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers. You can also add %u (the landing page macro) if you wish to expand both the click string and landing page URL: %c%u expands into a complete landing page URL.

Steps to implement. Here's an example of a click string:

To add a click string to the landing page URL of a custom creative, position the %c macro at the beginning of the landing page URL in the creative code, as in this click-through URL:

When an ad server serves a creative, the %c macro expands into the click string. Here's an example of how the above landing page URL might look after the %c macro at the beginning expands:

You can see the %c has expanded into the click string at the beginning of the landing page URL, forming a complete creative URL.

To insert the whole creative URL at once, combine the %c macro (click string) with the %u macro (landing page URL): <a href="%c%u">. The two macros expand into the complete creative URL.

For example, if you insert <a href="%c%u"> into the HTML code, it might expand to:

When %u expands into a landing page URL, any other macros in the landing page URL automatically expand as well, including the %c macro.

%e — Expand macro

The %e macro expands into the ID number for various properties of a creative. Insert an accessor after the macro to determine which ID number the macro expands into, and thus which creative property to track. See the list of accessors below.

You can use match tables to define these ID numbers and associate creative properties with them, as the ID numbers are linked to the descriptions in Campaign Manager 360 (and in your own backend database). These ID numbers can help you track different properties of your creatives through the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers.

Floodlight tags only support one version of the expand macro: %ers!. They do not support any other kind of %e macro. Note that %ers! works everywhere else that the expand macro is supported (see the table above).

If you're using tracking ads on mobile app inventory and are using a static landing page, the %e macro will not expand properly.

There's no limit to the number of %e macros a landing page URL can contain. Here's an example of a landing page URL with three %e macros:

%g — Geographic data macro

The %g macro provides geographic information related to an ad request. It can be used to dynamically reflect the location of users in standard, custom, and rich media creatives. The %g macro expands with a string of key-values for information such as country abbreviation, state abbreviation, city, postal code, Designated Market Area^® Region, and internet connection bandwidth. This information comes back to you through the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers.

For example, %g might expand to the following for a user located in New York City:

%h — Creative server macro

The %h macro expands into the host name of the server that serves a creative. This eliminates the need to hard-code the host name into your tag. The host name varies and the macro expands dynamically for each creative.

Add the %h macro to the beginning of the URL in your tag, such as in this image tag, where "123456" is a placeholder for the advertiser ID:

%i — Impression macro

The %i macro expands into an impression string, which allows the Campaign Manager 360 ad server to track impressions for an interstitial ad at impression time.

Add the %i macro at the beginning of the URL in your tag, as in this example:

The %i macro must be used in all interstitial ads, as it enables the Campaign Manager 360 ad server to track when an interstitial impression is actually served.

%k — Keyword macro

The %k macro expands into a substring found in the ad tags (specifically, in the request URL). You can use this macro to display user-entered keywords in creatives.

This macro is also useful to multiple keyword buys: it expands into any one of multiple keywords for the same creative, depending on which keyword the user enters. For example, consider how the %k macro helps an advertiser with a keyword buy for both car insurance and car loans. When a user searches for car insurance, the creative with that macro displays Click Here for Car Insurance; when a user searches for car loans, the same creative displays Click Here for Car Loans.

Use a key-value pair to designate which substring the macro expands into. A key-value pair consists of a key (start_key_string) and a corresponding value (end_character).

Insert your macro and key-value pair in the following order: the macro, then the first value, then an exclamation point (!), and finally the second value. The format looks like this:

The %k macro captures a substring designated by these parameters. It finds the keyword you designate and expands the macro into it. You can insert the key-value pair in an ad Campaign Manager 360 tag or a jump Campaign Manager 360 tag.

Another use of the %k macro is to unescape escaped characters. When the macro passes a substring to the HTML of a creative, all of the escaped characters within the captured substring are automatically converted back to their original character sets. For example:

To display car insurance in the creative, you must decode the escaped character +. So the advertiser embeds %k in the creative's code. The ad server captures the substring kw=car+insurance, decodes the + character, and displays it as car insurance in the creative.

Now the code looks like this:

A note on %k and %p macros: The two macros are similar in that they both capture a substring designated by the start_key_string, but they differ in how they pass the substring. Whereas the %k macro passes the substring to the HTML of a creative, the %p macro passes the substring to the URL. Unlike the %p macro, the %k macro only works within a creative's HTML code.

%m — Match code macro

The %m macro expands into a user's DoubleClick cookie value if browser settings make cookies available when the user clicks on the creative. One use of this macro is to generate a list of user IDs and then retarget users who have previously responded to the creative. The user ID is encrypted with the advertiser ID encryption key. Learn more about user ID encryption in your Campaign Manager 360 account.

You can insert the macro into the landing page URL, the redirect URL, the creative code, or a hard-coded click tracker, such as ad.doubleclick.net/clk. (The DoubleClick cookie value is a 64-bit integer with a maximum of 20 characters.)

Ad servers expand the %m macro in the click string that follows a click event–they do not expand the macro within a creative.

• If a user disables cookies for their browser or has opted out of cookies, the ad server expands %m to 0.
• In creative code, the %m macro does not take effect for browsers that are behind a proxy. In this case, the ad server also expands %m to 0.

%n — Random number macro

The %n macro expands into a random number. Random numbers keep browsers from caching a URL. When the ad serves, the ad servers dynamically generate a random number and append it to the URL in place of %n. Because there's a new random number in the URL each time the ad serves, the browser can't load a cached version of the ad. When you defeat caching, you prevent third-party servers from undercounting impressions.

The %n macro is often used on the publisher side when Campaign Manager 360 must redirect to a third party for a creative. Third parties typically have their own random number syntax, similar to Campaign Manager 360's ord=[random_number]?.

The %n macro also enables third parties to track clicks. Because each user click expands a unique random number in place of the %n macro, third parties can track each click separately. Traffickers should confirm with the third party that they support the additional character string that the macro expands into.

%p — Pattern match macro

The %p macro expands into a substring found in the request URL of your ad tags. When the ad serves, the macro expands into whatever is found between your specified start string and end character.

How to designate the substring: Use a key-value pair to define the beginning and end of the type of substring you wish the server to search for. A key-value pair consists of two key-values: a start_key_string value and an end_character value.

• [start_key_string]: As the key portion of a key-value pair, it must be included in the ad tags. It is case-sensitive and doesn't include the placeholder brackets.

• [end_character]: The character used to signify the end of a key-value. If an end character is not indicated and the start string is the last key-value in a tag, the ad server copies the entire string. You can enter each value as any string of ASCII values. The value should be at least two characters in length and not include the placeholder brackets.

Here's the basic format:

Typically the %p macro is used to expand into a keyword that helps track reporting information. For example, if you wanted to pull in a car model name, you’d insert a %p macro in the ad tag, along with your start string (model=) and your chosen end character (in this case, a semicolon). Again, note that the placeholder brackets are not included:

When your ad serves, Campaign Manager 360 searches for model= in the ad tags and captures everything between model= and the end character (;). 

Some common uses for the %p macro include:

• Advertisers passing values or variables from Floodlight tags to publisher tags.

• Publishers passing values dynamically into landing page URLs.

%s — Site keyname macro

The %s macro expands differently depending on whether you add it to ad tags or Floodlight tags.

• Ad tags expand into the Campaign Manager 360 site keyname: When a user clicks on an ad served by Campaign Manager 360, this macro expands into the keyname of the site to which the ad was served. This keyname should match the keyname listed on the site's Properties tab in Campaign Manager 360 (Admin > Sites).

  For example, consider this URL, which includes an %s macro at the end:

  http://www.advertiser.com/cgi.bin/?%s

  If this URL is included in an ad served to a site with the keyname N255.010101.sandwiches, then when the user clicks the ad, the macro expands to N255.010101.sandwiches:

  http://www.advertiser.com/cgi.bin/?N255.010101.sandwiches

  If site info is not available in real time, %s may expand to an empty string.

• Floodlight tags expand into the Campaign Manager 360 site ID: When a Floodlight tag fires on a site, the %s macro expands into the ID of the site. This is the ID that Campaign Manager 360 uses to identify the site.

%u — Landing page URL macro

The %u macro expands into the landing page URL of a creative. For example, <a href="%u"> might expand into the following landing page URL:

To insert the whole creative URL at once, combine the %u macro with the %c macro. The two macros expand into the entire URL: %c (click string) + %u (landing page URL) = a complete creative URL.

For example, if you insert <a href="%c%u"> into the HTML code, it might expand to:

http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;361119;0-8388608;2;321977;1-468|60;0|0|0;;?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doubleclick.com%2Fpath%2Fpage.html