Click and View QA Procedure

Below are methods for collecting accurate view and click data including types of tags deployed.

Tags for Impression and Clicks

At C3 Metrics we use multiple kinds of tags to capture click and view data from client advertisements.

Tracking Views

We use two main types of tags for capturing viewable impressions.

Our Standard View Tag is a JavaScript tag that can measure viewablity. This tag only fires when it is in view, and we prefer to use it whenever possible.

Below is our Standard View Tag, where XXX is the Campaign ID assigned by C3:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn-view.c3tag.com/v.js? cid=XXX&c3ch=[CHANNEL NAME]&c3nid=[PARTNER NAME]"></script>

There are some situations, for instance when tagging Emails, where we can not use the Standard View Tag, and we must use an Image Tag. The Image Tag is a static image which can not measure viewability, and simply fires when the page loads. Below is our Image Tag, where XXX is the Campaign ID assigned by C3:

<img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="display: none;" src="https://XXX-img.c3tag.com/v.gif?cid=XXX&c3ch=[CHANNEL NAME]&c3nid=[PARTNER NAME]">

Note: On pages that utilize auto refresh, please add the following parameter: rf=1

Viewability

Our metric for viewability follows IAB guidelines: at least 50% of an ad must be in view for at least 1 second. Our Standard View Tag only captures impressions that pass this test, also called certified viewable impressions.

If an ad is placed at the bottom of a page, and the customer never scrolls down to see it, our Standard View Tag will not fire. If that same ad placement is tagged with an Image Tag, we will still collect a view, simply because the customer loaded the page.

Because we can not determine viewability for uncertified impressions, we deprecate them by about 70% compared to certified impressions.

Tracking Clicks

Our Site Tag is a JavaScript tag which is placed on landing pages, or any page to which media is driving traffic.

This tag collects information from click-through traffic, and can determine which ad placement or referral sent a customer to the landing page.

Below is our standard site tag, where XXX is the Campaign ID assigned by C3:

<script type="text/javascript" src="//XXX-ct.c3tag.com/c3metrics-XXX.js"></script>

How these tags work together

A view tag will be applied to an ad placement, and it will fire when that placement is in view, or, in the case of an Image Tag, when that placement is loaded. If a customer clicks on that ad, they will be driven to a landing page that should have our Site Tag on it. The click-through URL, or destination URL, should be appended with the same parameters as the view tag. At this point, the site tag fires and sends the click data to our system.

In this way, the tag on the ad itself registers a View, while the Site Tag on the landing page registers the Click.

Applying Tags to Ad Placements

Ad Placements can be served through either an ad server, like DCM, or through individual vendors. We can provide ad servers with a dynamic tag that has macros in place for each parameter, and this tag can be automatically applied to all placements by the ad server.

For individual vendors, we will provide unique tags for each placement, which must be applied manually.

Test Pages

We will ask vendors to supply us with a test page after they have applied our view tag to their media. We can verify that our view tracking has been applied and that it fires correctly, and we can click through the placement to the landing page to check that the site tag is collecting the correct click data.

After creating Image Tags, we will generate our own test page and populate it with the tags, in order to check that they fire correctly.

Validating the Data

We collect click and impression data on a placement level and it is summarized on an hour-by-hour basis. Additionally, most vendors and ad servers capture click and impression data on their end, and they can pass that information to us. We compare the data we collect with the vendor data and we investigate any discrepancies.

Fraud

Our view tags travel simultaneously with every display impression.
A benefit of this granularity is that we often discover what we call “daypart” fraud, or, more accurately, a lapse in daypart controls on the side of the network. As midnight rolls around and the day turns new, networks, exchanges, and publishers need to make money quickly. Thus, they open the gates to traffic which is often fraudulent, and goes unnoticed if impressions are only summarized on a day-by-day basis.

At C3 Metrics, we summarize impressions on an hourly basis. This lets us see unusual surges in impressions, especially in what we call the fraudulent playground window (12:00 AM to 6:30 AM):

We also ignore impressions from certain suspicious IP addresses and known bot nets. This helps to ensure that the data we collect is coming from actual, interested customers, and not fraudulent traffic.