Third-party trackers are externally provided codes used to track, evaluate, and better understand the performance of your Outbrain DSP campaigns by measuring metrics such as viewability, brand safety, and more.
Third-party trackers come in the form of an HTML tag (image or JavaScript format) and are passed by Outbrain DSP on the bid response. These trackers are used to transfer data to your 3rd party tracking platform so you can validate metrics such as impressions, viewable impressions, and clicks.
This article will walk you through the workflow of adding click and impression trackers to your Outbrain DSP campaigns. Let’s get started!
In Outbrain DSP, third-party trackers are always implemented on the ad level:
How To Add Third-Party Click Tracking to Your DSP Ads
1. Navigate to the desired ad group and click on + Ads (if you’re editing existing ads, the same option is available by clicking the pencil icon next to the ad Title).
2. Paste the click tracker in the URL field.
PLEASE NOTE: Third-party click-tracker validation: Outbrain DSP will check your URL when you upload it to check the validity of your landing page. If the landing page is not available or includes too many redirects, you won’t be able to upload the URL. Please contact your Customer Success representative if this occurs.
How To Add Third-Party Impression Tracking to Your DSP Ads
1. Navigate to the desired ad group and click on + Ads (if you’re editing existing ads, the same option is available by clicking the pencil icon next to the ad Title).
2. Scroll to the bottom of the upload window to the Tracking section and click on Add primary tracker.
3. Select the desired tracking method. You can choose between Image Pixel Tracking or JavaScript Tag Tracking.
4. Choose the event type to trigger your tracker. Find the available event types below. For JavaScript Tag - the event type that triggers the tracker is always impressions.
Event type | Description |
impression | Ad is served on the publisher page |
viewability | Ad is 50% in view for 1 second or 100% in view for 1 second |
5. Insert the tracker. Both image and JavaScript Trackers should always be inserted in the URL form.
6. Optional: If using a JavaScript tracker, you can insert a fallback tracker in the image format. Outbrain DSP will pass this tracker where JavaScript tracking is not supported.
7. Reachability checks might sometimes fail due to validation servers being blocked. If you are going to insert a tracker that fails the reachability check, an instant warning message will appear. If you are sure the tracker is reachable regardless of the message, you can decide to force skip this validation process by checking the box on the screenshot below.
8. Decide whether you’d like to limit your buying to traffic where 3rd party tracking is supported or whether you’d like to purchase traffic regardless of 3rd party tracker support (for more information, check out the notes at the bottom of this article).
9. Save the tracker.
10. You are able to upload up to four impression trackers to one ad (the limit is three image impression trackers and 1 JavaScript impression tracker).
IMPORTANT:
Not all supply partners support impression tracking. Please make sure to refer to this list to check the limitations.
If you’re running campaigns in countries that fall under GDPR restrictions, please make sure all trackers are GDPR compliant. In the case of non-compliant trackers, we will not be able to append your trackers to responses coming from these countries. Please refer to the list of macros to see which GDPR macros are supported.
If you are using Moat or IAS Javascript impression trackers, then you must not add the GDPR macros to the string (because the tracking will not work if you do). Moat and IAS tags will be fired in any case, as they are able to check for consent on their own.
For Adform tags, it is necessary to add the GDPR-specific macros as described here. If these macros are missing, the tracking pixels will not be fired in countries where GDPR applies.
Third-party tracker validation: Outbrain DSP only checks if the URL is valid (HTTPS) and reachable and has the correct type (image for pixel, script for JS). However, Outbrain DSP doesn't check macros for validity outside of the GDPR macro that is tested for presence to provide information to the bidder.
For campaigns running in the EU and/or the UK, Outbrain DSP only supports pixels from IAB TCF-registered vendors listed on the IAB’s Global Vendor List (GVL).