Creating an advertiser campaign
What is a campaign in RT?
Campaign is a set of rules and other possible settings that link together a traffic channel and the promoted website. Creating a campaign in RedTrack primarily aims to generate the final link for directing traffic and monitoring your website’s performance.
How to create a campaign?
1. Prerequisites for your campaign
Before you proceed with campaign creation, make sure you already have the following elements in place these elements:
1. Add a CNAME record pointing to your RedTrack default domain in your domain registrar.
2. On the left menu go to Tools → Domains → Create new domain.
3. Add the integrated domain to your RedTrack account and activate the Free SSL option.
Traffic channels → New From template/New From Scratch → Add.
1. Go to Brands → New → Add your brand (it is the name of your shop or your website).
2. On the same page, add the purchase data parameters – Name/Description is what you will see in reports – Roles define their use with CAPI.
3. Go to Websites → New → Add your website URL (this is your e-commerce shop/website link).
4. Follow the suggested steps to generate the scripts. You will need it later for your e-commerce platform.
– this guide for additional details on Brands and Websites setup in RT.
– this guide for more info on e-commerce platform integration.
2. Compile your campaign
1. Campaigns → Create new campaign:
2. Edit/adjust each the needed blocks as per the tips below:
1. Give your Campaign a name.
2. Choose the Traffic channel.
3. Select the custom tracking domain.
4. Choose the Campaign Cost model and fill in the Value accordingly if applicable:
Select the store / Website you added earlier.
Redirect types decide how redirection to the offer is handled and whether the referrer data is passed through. First of all, click here to learn how the hidden referrer works and choose the required redirect type based on their explanation below:
- “Regular redirect (http/s 302)” is a standard temporary HTTP redirect that sends a visitor directly to the desired location (the offer you promote). The referrer data is passed to the campaign endpoint.
- “Meta refresh with hidden referrer” presupposes that after the redirect happens, another redirect takes place with the help of an HTML meta tag. As a result, the referrer points to RedTrack, not the initial referrer.
- “JS refresh” is similar to the meta refresh type, but it’s fulfilled with the help of JavaScript. That being said, this type is not generally recommended for SEO because search engines can have difficulty crawling and indexing sites that rely on them.
- “Server redirect (http/s 302) with hidden referrer” means the referrer is hidden when redirecting on the side of the TDS header.
- “Double meta refresh with hidden referrer” is similar to “Meta refresh with hidden referrer” but this method involves using two meta refreshes to mask the original source of the traffic, making it more challenging to identify where the user initially came from.
- “Regular redirect (http/s 307)” is similar to “Regular redirect (http/s 302)” but it’s working more efficiently with old version browsers.
To sum up, Server redirect (HTTP/S 302) with hidden referrer is faster than Regular redirect (HTTP/S 302) and Meta refresh with hidden referrer. This is because a server redirect is processed on the server side, while a meta refresh and JS refresh are processed on the client side. Server redirects are faster because the server does the work of redirecting the request for you, whereas in a meta refresh or JS refresh the client has to do this work. Moreover, server redirects can be cached, making them even faster.
This section is optional. It serves for adding tags and additional notes to distinguish the added Campaigns. Click here to learn more about tags and notes.
To add /edit the postback:
1. Go to the section S2S Postback for <your traffic channel> → Add → add/edit the postback URL (or multiple URLs if that’s the case) → make sure that all the needed values for the source parameters are in place → Save changes to the campaign:
– If you changed the Postback URL in the Traffic channel template (added/removed some parameters to it), remember to manually update the link in Campaign settings as well, as it won’t be generated correctly automatically.
– Some traffic channels require you to edit the postback with specific parameters for each campaign (e.g., the goal for Exoclick or ap_key for Go2Mobi). If the field remains blank or contains text such as “REPLACE”, it means you need to define the Postback conditions manually.
2. Follow this guide (“Conditional postback in the S2S Postback” section) to set up conditional postback, payout values, and postback method.
Refer to this article (“Conditional postback in the API Integration postback” section) to set up the API Integration conditional postback.
3. Auto update costs toggle is switched on automatically for the API-bound traffic channels. Refer to this guide for more details on this feature.
3. Extra settings (optional)
There are some extra tabs that can be filled in as per your needs:
These tabs are enabled only if you have access to and use the partner management portal and work with individual publishers who promote your offers. A traffic channel “For Publishers“ is to be used from the template.
The URL field in this section serves as the destination URL where the impressions info is going to be sent in case impressions are collected within this campaign. Add the Impression forwarding URL only if your traffic channel supports this option.
The Click forwarding URL allows you to send click data from your campaigns to an external system. Its main purpose is to share click data with third-party tools, most commonly fraud detection platforms, by forwarding all clicks for validation to the external URL you provide. Click forwarding works independently of the campaign’s traffic channel.
To set it up, go to your Campaign → Click forwarding URL → Add:
Enter the URL → select the postback method → save the changes to your campaign:
Fields explained:
This is where you paste the URL used to send click data. This URL is always provided by your fraud detection provider or any other solution you’re integrating with. If you don’t have it or are unsure what to enter here, please contact your fraud detection solution, they will share the correct template or endpoint for your setup.
You can also use the dynamic parameters (shown below the field) to pass additional data through the URL, such as campaign details, location, device information, and more.
You can choose between two methods:
- GET: sends click data as URL parameters. Use this method if the external platform accepts postbacks and reads parameters directly from the URL.
- POST: sends click data in JSON format. Use this method for custom integrations where the external system requires structured data.
4. Copy the RT tracking URL
Once you’re done with all the Campaign elements, save it → go to Tracking links and parameters → choose the tracking method and copy the automatically generated values/URLs:
→ Redirect link for the traffic channels that support the redirect method.
→ Website URL + No-Redirect/Universal script + the tracking parameters for those who accept no-redirect only.
– Universal tracking script
– No redirect tracking
– Tracking impressions
