What is the AdForm integration?

Corina Alonso Updated by Corina Alonso

General Information

Adform is an ad-server and DSP platform in one flask. Advertisers and agencies use Adform to manage their IO and Programmatic campaigns. The Adform integration in AudienceReport Next enables you to measure viewability, impressions and clicks for multiple creatives. Additionally, you can enable video funnel measurement and create a media block list. 

Once the integration is set up, all campaigns created after the setup date will automatically get an AudienceReport Next-pixel added in Adform, so that it is ready to begin to be measured once the campaign has begun.

How does it work?

The Adform integration is responsible for setting up AudienceReport pixels and scripts on all active and future campaigns.

To achieve this, the integration launches a tagging process approximately each 1 to 4 hours.

It performs the following steps:

  1. Find future and ongoing campaigns
  2. Get their line items and filter out line items that belong to media on the blocklist
  3. Get Adform tags owned by these line items that have not received AudienceReport pixels/scripts
  4. Add necessary AudienceReport pixels/scripts to these tags
  5. Make a record that includes these tags received AudienceReport pixels/scripts

Note: please note that there might be tag limitations for specific types of measurement. This means that in some cases a tag can be invalid, because of the limitation, and therefore it might not be possible to place the pixel, nor measure impressions. If this should happen, please contact our support team via support@audienceproject.com.

The integration sets the following tracking properties:

  1. Impression pixel
  2. Click pixel
  3. Third-party JavaScript (if the creative type supports it)
  4. Video events (on VAST and Video creatives, if you have enabled Video funnel events)
The integration has permissions only to modify tags, everything else such as creatives, campaigns, and line items, are available in read-only mode. At the same time AudienceProject does not have permissions to create nor delete tags.
  1. The integration never removes anything from Tags or overrides. It always appends pixels/scripts. The only exception to this, is if you are migrating data from the original AudienceReport to the new generation of AudienceReport. If this applies to you, please contact your Customer Support Manager.
  2. Each change is logged in AudienceReport. This log is accessible to you in the AudienceReport control panel.
    1. Go to your control panel and select the integrations’ page. Then click on details. There you will be able to see the logs.
    2. OR go to the integrations’ page and select Adform. Then in the action button click on logs. 
  4. If you remove pixel/script manually from a tag, the integration will not re-add it automatically.

Video funnel measurement

If you decide to enable Video funnel measurement, then video-funnel pixels will be added to Video tags. When this is enabled, video pixels will be added to currently active and future campaigns. If the measurement is disabled, no changes will happen on tags where pixels are added.

Be aware that integration measures on Line Item granularity, therefore if a Line item has Video and Display creatives, funnels will be distorted, because impression events will be on all creatives, video start - on video, and viewability - on display.

We recommend setting up different Line Items for Display and Video in this case.

Media block-list

Media block-list allows avoiding adding AudienceReport Pixels to Tags that belong to Direct Line Items targeting selected Media. For instance, if Publisher X is not accepting the AudienceReport pixel, this publisher should be added to the block list and then all tags accordingly.

When this setting is enabled, it affects whether the AudienceReport pixel should be added or not. So, adding media to the block list affects future tags. If tracking pixels are already set, they need to be removed manually. 

[INFO] If media is removed from a block list, pixels will be added to all active and future tags during the next integration cycle.

[Note]: This feature also works, if you want to allow AudienceProject’s pixels in a specific media list. For this, you can specify in which media channels you want to allow AudienceProject to be added. All other media not present in that list, will be excluded from having AudienceProject’s pixels.

When pausing or deleting the integration

What happens when the integration is Deleted?

We stop running integration cycles and therefore add pixels to new Tags. We continue receiving and counting impressions from existing pixels. Adform Client in question can be activated on other integration instances. Logs are kept internally for 90 days

Common questions

How to remove AudienceReport pixels?

There is no automation to remove pixels. So, this needs to be done manually. To understand what tags got our pixels, you can download CSV from Log (from Adform) and find all campaigns/tags that got our pixels.

What happens when the integration settings get updated?

As a rule of thumb, updates are coming into effect in the next integration cycle. Integration never deletes impression trackers it created previously.

What happens if there are already AudienceReport pixels on an Adform tag?

If there is a pixel or script with the same trackpoint, then the tag will be skipped, and the URL will not be modified.

If there is another trackpoint (Adform integration from another AR account or just custom pixel) - a new set of pixels will be added. Most creative types support multiple pixels/scripts, so it is not an issue. If there is a limit on the number of pixels/scripts added on the creative, the tag will remain without pixel/script, and there will be an error line in logs.

What if only selected campaigns should be measured?

The integration-specific user should then be created in Adform, and access limited only to Campaigns that need to be measured.

What happens if a Campaign or Line Item is archived?

Archived items remain in AudienceReport Next User interface even if there are no impressions. Currently, there is no way to remove them from the interface. There is a feature request for it.

What can I do if my client does not want to create a new user access? 

In this case, AudienceProject will work with the existing user email. 

The consequence of that will be that if the user leaves the company, the user’s access will be blocked and the integration will not work anymore.

Unfortunately, this would be discovered when data from current campaigns is irreversibly lost or campaigns are partially reported.

However, the AudienceProject team is constantly monitoring if integrations are working, and therefore will  notify you if an integration should stop working. Please note, that this process can take some time, as it is not automated yet.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that clients add a new user access.

Why can’t I see any data / impressions coming in?

The basis for gathering impressions and data in general are tags/pixels. Tags are the responsibles for measurement, therefore if you are not seeing data coming in, we suggest first to check if the tags have been correctly implemented. 

Make sure that when configuring your campaign all needed tags are created properly.

How can I check whether the pixel is implemented correctly in Adform? 

To test the added pixel you should go to the Tags page in Adform. You will be able to see all tags that have been created. Select a tag by clicking the checkbox, then click on the “Preview” button in the upper menu.

If you cannot see the tag you are looking for, then it has not been saved properly. In this case, please repeat the process of creating pixels.
Remember that there is approximately an hour delay between creating the tag and seeing the pixel on the list. This means that you have to create a campaign, create a tag and then in an hour go and check if the pixel is created.

You’ll get a pop up window with a banner/video of the selected tag. Open the Developer tools (F12/Command + Option + J) and refresh the pop-up window. Search for “hit” on the Network tab and you’ll get an overview of your fired events: which are scripts, pixels, or video pixels depending on the type of your item.

When can I see data in AudienceReport Next from my Adform campaign? 

After the integration is setted up, the data synchronization will start and you will be able to see campaign data. Afterwards, synchronization cycles run every hour.

How did we do?

Integrate with Adform

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