Using Media Audience Analytics

You can use creative tags to collect impression and click data from your media creatives, associate it with the audience data in the Oracle Data Cloud platform, and then use media audience analytics (MAA) to track, analyze, and report audience behavior throughout the conversion funnel.

MAA enables you to optimize the audiences you are targeting. For example, you can find categories that correlate to your key performance indicators, which may be conversion events (included in the audience discovery report) or click events (included in the media discovery report). You can use the funnel analysis report to determine the conversion-driving categories to keep investing in and the low-converting categories to discard. You can use your impression and click data to validate the audiences for which you are generating impressions. If you are a publisher, you can also use media analytics to optimize your audiences to maximize click-through rates.

Important: Creative tags collect click and impression data. Unlike site data collection tags, the data collected remains private (is not available to the Oracle Data Marketplace).

Prerequisites

One of the following ad servers:

• Doubleclick Campaign Manager (DCM), which was formerly known as Doubleclick for Advertisers (DFA)
• Doubleclick for Publishers (DFP)

To use media audience analytics:

• Request media audience analytics.
• Create your creative tags.
• Add creative tags to your media pixels.
• Test creative tags in your web browser.
• Fire test impressions.
• Run media audience analytics reports.

Note: If you cannot append media pixels in ad creatives or ad tags in your inventory, you can alternatively ingest ad server log files.

Method	Benefit	Limitation
Tags	Media data collected from a tag can be classified for targeting and frequency capping. Does not require a Google Cloud Services account or the Google Data Transfer service.	Mobile browser support is not reliable. Not supported in mobile apps. Not permitted on Google Display Network (GDN) and some other Google products. Requires manual implementation.
Log file ingest	Provides the greatest number of trackable impressions and clicks because ad server logs are not subject to the same restrictions that DMP tags are, particularly across Google Display Network (GDN). Does not require manual implementation.	Log file data cannot currently be used for classification.

Requesting media audience analytics

To get started with media audience analytics, contact My Oracle Support (MOS) and request the media audience analytics Cloud Service SKU. After you complete and sign the required paperwork and this SKU has been added to your contract, the feature will be enabled in the Oracle Data Cloud platform. This will enable you to create creative tags for collecting your media data and it will give you access to the media discovery and media profile reports in the audience analytics suite.

Note: Media audience analytics is currently in controlled availability.

Mobile media audience analytics

You can import your mobile media data into your DMP and use the audience analytics suite for audience-level reporting of your mobile data to do the following:

• Better understand your mobile impressions and clicks via audience behavioral and demographic data.
• Leverage audience analytics to optimize the messaging you use for target groups within your mobile advertising.
• Compare and contrast the audiences you are reaching on mobile devices versus desktop.

After mobile media audience analytics is enabled in your partner seat, you can add creative tags to mobile media creatives to track impressions and clicks. You can then use the mobile device selector in the media discovery report to analyze media activity for your mobile users.

If you are already a media audience analytics customer, you can use the same creative tags that you deployed on your desktop site. After you implement your creative tags in your mobile media, contact My Oracle Support (MOS) to have your account management team complete your onboarding process.The platform automatically detects the device type (desktop or mobile) when users view or click your media.

Creating creative tags

To create creative tags for collecting impression and click data from your media:

1. Create a container in the platform UI. A container includes a unique site ID that links your media creatives with the Oracle Data Cloud platform.
2. In the Create New Container dialog, set the following values for your container:
   

   Setting	Value
   Name	Enter “creative tag container” (or something comparable that makes it easy to identify your container’s functionality).
   Country	Enter the country associated with your site.
   Default Auction Limit	Enter 0 for the number of slots to be allocated on your site for firing third-party pixels.
   Campaign Access	Accept the default value (Only Me).

   
   
3. Click Save and Generate Code to create your container and open the container code tag generator.
   Alternatively, use the containers API to create the container with the settings listed above and record the generated desktop and mobile site IDs. You can then copy and configure the code examples provided in the creative tag code reference.
4. Use the Generate Code dialog to create the code for the creative tag you will add to your media following the steps below. The tag generator includes pre-built code templates that include all the macros required by your ad server for capturing media analytics data.
5. Select one of the following container tag types:
   • Media click tracking: This tag enables your DMP to collect clicks from your ad campaigns or from campaigns that run on your sites.
     
   • Media impression tracking: This tag enables your DMP to collect impressions from your ad campaigns or from campaigns that run on your sites.
     
6. Configure the following settings. The container tag code in the box to the right is updated as you do this.

   Setting	Value
   Site ID	Use the default site ID (the desktop site ID that was generated when you created your container). The platform automatically detects the device type (desktop or mobile) when users interact with your media.
   Protocol	Select the HTTP protocol of the page on which the tag is to be deployed (HTTP or HTTPS). Always use a secure tag (HTTPS) for web pages that use SSL.
   Ad Server	Select one of the following ad servers: DCM: Google Doubleclick Campaign Manager DFP: Google Doubleclick for Publishers
   Creative Click Thru URL	If you are deploying a media click tag, enter the URL-encoded click-through of your media creative. If your media click tags is being redirected from another tracker, you need to double-encode the tag.

7. Click Copy in the container tag code box to the right, paste the tag code into a text file, and then save your text file.

   Tip: You can also pass custom variables into your creative tag to capture additional data. For example, if you add phint=customvariable%3Dvalue to your creative tag, the platform will begin collecting the customvariable data. You can use the Taxonomy Manager to create categories and classification rules to map your custom variables into categories.

8. Confirm the macros in your creative tag are current with your ad server.

Creative tag code reference

The following table lists the syntax for the Media - Clicks and Media - Impressions tags for the Oracle-supported ad servers. If you are creating the container tag code from these examples (for example, you used the containers API to create the container), add the site ID generated when you created your container and the URL-encoded click-through of your media creative in their respective placeholders (in italicized text).

Ad server	Tag	Code
DFP	Media click	http://analytics.bluekai.com/site/siteID?phint=event%3Dclick&phint=aid%3D%eadv!&phint=adid%3D%eaid!&phint=cid%3D%ebuy!&phint=crid%3D%ecid!&done=include_URL-encoded_URL
	Media impression	http://analytics.bluekai.com/site/siteID?phint=event%3Dimp&phint=aid%3D%eadv!&phint=pid%3D%epid!&phint=cid%3D%ebuy!&phint=crid%3D%ecid!
DCM	Media click	http://analytics.bluekai.com/sitesiteID?phint=event%3Dclick&phint=aid%3D%eadv!&phint=adid%3D%eaid!&phint=cid%3D%ebuy!&phint=crid%3D%ecid!&done=include_URL-encoded_URL
	Media impression	http://analytics.bluekai.com/site/siteID?phint=event%3Dimp&phint=aid%3D%eadv!&phint=pid%3D%epid!&phint=cid%3D%ebuy!&phint=crid%3D%ecid!
	Convesrsions	http://analytics.bluekai.com/site/siteID?phint=event%3Dact You can use this optional tag to track conversions for self-classification purposes. Conversions are not currently available within the MAA reports. To add conversion events to your taxonomy, contact your Oracle account manager and request the classification of your conversion data into your taxonomy.

Creative tag macro reference

The following table summarizes the macros included in the BlueKai creative tags for DCM and DFP. When your ad server fires your BlueKai creative tag, these macros expand, your media impression and click data is passed to the platform, and the data is stored in your DMP.

Macro	Description	Required or optional
aid%3D%eadv!	Advertiser ID	Required
pid%3D%epid!	Placement ID	Required
adid%3D%eaid!	DCM: Ad ID DFP: Line item ID	Required
crid%3D%ecid!	Creative ID	Required
cid%3D%ebuy!	DCM: Deprecated DFP: Order ID	Required for DFP
sid%3D%esid!	Site ID	Optional

Adding creative tags to your media pixels

If your ad inventory does not accept Oracle Data Cloud platform pixels in ad creatives or ad tags, ingest ad server log files instead.

To add your BlueKai creative tags to your media pixels:

• Media click: Add this tag to the front of your click-through URLs in your ad server.
• Media impression: Embed the tag in your media creatives in your ad server. For DCM, you will typically place the impression tag after the closing </noscript> tag. For details, see placement tags in the DCM help.

Testing creative tags in your web browser

The follow section lists the recommended standard steps for testing 4^th-party pixels. Before implementing your live media, you must follow these steps to ensure all creative tags are firing properly and that all your media data is being collected.

To verify that your BlueKai creative tag will be called when users view or click your impressions and that it is formatted correctly, you can add a media pixel to a test page and verify that the BlueKai creative tag is fired in your browser.

To test your creative tags:

1. Add the pixel for one of your media creatives to a test page. Your test media pixel must include the piggybacked BlueKai creative tag.
2. Open a web browser, delete the cache, and then open a developer tool (such as the Firebug in Firefox).
3. Open your test page in the browser.
4. In your browser tool, check that the BlueKai creative tag has been fired. You should a request URL with a format similar to the following example (where each macro has been replaced by an identifier and the event is defined as 'imp' or 'click'): http://analytics.bluekai.com/site/15415?phint=event%3Dimp&phint=aid%3D3452&phint=pid%3D87654&phint=cid%3D87653&phint=crid%3D99876567
5. Verify the following in the request URL:
   • There is no ! after the & character, there are no extra % characters after the %3D characters in a phint, and there are no other extra spaces or special characters. These formatting errors may cause a mismatch between the IDs in the tag and those in the API or match table. Also make sure there are no spaces or other special characters in these places.
   • There are no missing or misplaced macro parameters in the URL.
   • For click tags, make sure clicking the link takes you to the correct landing page URL.
6. Contact your Oracle Data Cloud account manager and notify them that you have tested your creative tag. They will confirm the number of times your tag has been fired.

Firing test impressions

You can generate live data to confirm that the macros in your BlueKai creative tag are functioning properly.

To fire test impressions:

1. Open a web browser, delete the cache, and then open a browser tool, such as the following:
   • Chrome: Developer tools
   • Firefox: Tamper Data, Firebug, or HTTPFox
   • Internet Explorer: Fiddler
2. Fire a test impression.
3. From your browser tool, copy the request URL associated with BlueKai creative tag was fired, and paste it into a text file.
4. Get an aggregate report from your ad server that includes the name and ID of the various macros in your BlueKai creative tags. The report should be for the same day you fired the test tag (allow between 4 to 12 hours for your data to be included in the report).
5. For each macro in the request URL, verify that the value matches the one in your report.
6. Verify that your impression activity matches the amount of test impressions you fired.

Running media audience analytics reports

After your media data has been ingested into the Oracle Data Cloud platform, you can use it in your media audience analytics reports. This enables you to identify categories and the platform that are highly related to the audiences that saw or clicked on your ad campaigns or the ad campaigns that run on your site.

Related

Creating a container

Ingesting ad server log files

Media audience analytics reports