The following information provides web publishers and ad networks with additional details regarding the tracking, reporting, and scheduling of multi-advertiser Tristitials. Note that a single-advertiser Tristitial requires no special ad serving considerations and can be deployed as a conventional rich media ad.
Tristitial Ad Tracking
A typical multi-advertiser Tristitial is comprised of three clickable zones, each of which is associated with a different click-through URL.
The Tristitial employs the standard clickTAG method that is used to dynamically pass a click-through URL to the code underlying the Tristitial. A click-through URL typically includes ad tracking data and the destination URL.
During the creation and customization process of a multi-advertiser Tristitial, the publisher or ad network can specify a different name for the click-through tag that corresponds to each clickable zone in the Tristitial. Unless specified otherwise, the default names for such click-through tags are: clickTAG1, clickTAG2, and clickTAG3.
The serving tags for a Tristitial will typically include the following query string appended to the URL describing the physical location of the specific Tristitial:
"http://adserver.snap2eyes.com/tristitial.swf?clickTAG1=URL1&clickTAG2=URL2&clickTAG3=URL3" where "URL1," "URL2," and "URL3" are the URL-encoded representation of the tracking and redirection data.
Notes:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer has a maximum URL length of 2,083 characters for any queries composed by the GET method, and the Tristitial serving tag is a query string of appended click-through tags that utilizes the GET method. Therefore, the total string length for the Tristitial serving tag should not exceed the maximum URL length of 2,048 characters. For more information about this character limitation, please refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB208427.
- The click-through tags and their assigned values can also be supplied using the FlashVars property of the Macromedia® Flash® Player. All browsers support FlashVars string sizes of up to 64KB (65535 bytes) in length, thus eliminating the length limitation of the GET method described above. For more information about FlashVars, please refer to Macromedia Flash TechNote 16417.
Tristitial Performance Reporting
There are virtually countless ad management platforms and ad serving solutions. When it comes to selecting the best ad tracking solution for the Tristitial, web publishers and ad networks are free to adopt whichever reporting approach best serves their existing infrastructure.
In some cases, it is possible to link a particular rich media ad to more than one advertiser. In such cases, the existing reporting infrastructure will supply the necessary performance details without any further efforts from the web publisher or ad network beyond selecting the three advertisers to be linked to the Tristitial.
If, however, the existing ad management platform will not allow the web publisher or ad network to link multiple advertisers to a single ad, publishers and ad networks can exploit alternative methods.
One such an alternative method can be conducted by utilizing clear GIFs (or web beacons) within the serving tags. Using this method, the HTML/JavaScript tags wrapped around a specific multi-advertiser Tristitial may include up to three different clear GIFs. Each clear GIF can be treated as an invisible pixel ad in the existing ad management platform, and thereby function as an impression measurement mechanism that is linked to exactly one of the three advertisers sharing the same multi-advertiser Tristitial. If required by the ad management platform being used, the click-through URL for the specific advertiser can also include the unique identifier of the pixel ad which was assigned to that specific advertiser. Such unique identifier is then used to log any clicks received by such advertiser. Thus, while the three advertisers share the same physical ad unit, each advertiser is connected to its own tracking and reporting mechanism.
Notes:
- As with visible ads, these invisible pixel ads should employ cache defeat tokens to ensure the accuracy of the impression count metrics.
- The alternate image will be linked only to the advertiser who is allocated the alternate image. A web publisher or ad network may allot this alternate image by charging an additional fee, or by any other method that may be preferred.
- While three GIFs may be used, two will suffice because the ad unit can be used as a measurement unit.
Scheduling Different Banners in a Multi-Advertiser Tristitial
This section summarizes the Tristitial scheduling procedures that must be followed by web publishers and ad networks building Tristitials (web publishers and ad networks are hereafter referred to individually and collectively as "Publisher"). The Advertiser Publisher Agreement provides additional details on these procedures.
Note that scheduling is NOT an issue if:
- the impressions ordered by the three advertisers are to be exhausted in a relatively short time, which is typically the case for high traffic sites,
- the banners in the multi-advertiser Tristitial are scheduled at fixed, regular time intervals (daily, weekly, or monthly); or
- the actual cost of replacing a single banner within a particular multi-advertiser Tristitial is trivial relative to the revenue collected from such a new banner.
Unless forbidden by any pre-existing agreement with any of the Tristitial advertisers, the Publisher may achieve Tristitial scheduling uniformity by modifying the start and/or end dates requested by any of the three advertisers appearing in such Tristitial, in accordance with the following guidelines concerning campaign start and end dates, and promised impressions:
- Start Dates: if three Tristitial advertisers order different campaign start dates for the same Tristitial, the Publisher can schedule a uniform start date that occurs up to seven (7) days before the latest start date ordered by any of the three Tristitial advertisers, provided that the Publisher does not (i) schedule an earlier campaign end date for any of the three Tristitial advertisers whose start date was moved to an earlier date, or (ii) charge any such advertiser any additional fees for any extra impressions or clicks received as a result of such changed start date.
- End Dates: if three Tristitial advertisers order different campaign end dates for the same Tristitial, the Publisher can schedule a uniform end date that occurs up to seven (7) days after the earliest end date ordered by any of the three Tristitial advertisers, provided that the Publisher does not (i) schedule a later campaign start date for any of the three Tristitial advertisers whose end date was moved to a later date, or (ii) charge any such advertiser any additional fees for any extra impressions or clicks received as a result of such changed end date.
- Promised Impressions: if three advertisers scheduled to appear in the same Tristitial do not order the same number of impressions, the Publisher may elect to provide one or more advertisers with any additional impressions needed to create a uniform number of promised impressions for all three advertisers appearing in the same Tristitial, provided that the Publisher does not charge any additional fees for any impressions that (i) result from the Publisher's election and (ii) are in excess of the impressions that the advertisers who received such extra impressions would have otherwise been provided.