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Outbrain and RedTrack

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Outbrain is the world’s leading discovery and native advertising feed for the open web. A third of the world’s Internet-connected population explores and discovers information through our feed technology, which is trusted by emerging to established brands and integrated into thousands of media companies’ tech stacks to manage and monetize their publishing operations. Outbrain operates in 55 countries and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in 18 cities worldwide.

Keep in mind that Outbrain is integrated with RedTrack via an API connection. This option allows you to create the rules in RedTrack and manage your campaigns in Outbrain.

To integrate Outbrain with RedTrack act as follows:

How to integrate Outbrain with RedTrack?

1. Add Outbrain template to RedTrack.

Expand to see how to add Outbrain template to RedTrack

1.1 go to Traffic Sources ->  New from template:

1.2 find Outbrain -> ADD the template:

1.3 at this point add the {{cpc}} parameter to the Click Cost ID field and press Save:

The S2S postback URL for Outbrain and all the tracking parameters will be available once you add it, although you’ll need to change it by adding the correct Conversion Event Name. To do that proceed with step 2 of this guide.

Costs in the Outbrain Traffic source can now be updated on the level Сampaign + Placement + Geo

2. Activate the “Conversion Event Name” in Outbrain and add it to the S2S postback link. This is required for sending conversions back to Outbrain.

Expand to see how to activate the Conversion Event Name

2.1 go to your Outbrain account-> navigate to the Conversions tab-> press Add Conversion:

2.2 choose the Event-Based Conversion type:

2.3 fill in the needed fields in the Details section. Pay special attention to the field Name (2), as what you put in there is the Conversion Event Name which you’ll later need to put to the S2S postback URL in step 2.4. Once you are done, press Save:

2.4 once it’s saved, go back to RedTrack -> open the Outbrain template (added within step 1)-> copy the conversion name (added within step 2.3) -> add this name to the S2S Postback URL instead of the CONVERSION_EVENT_NAME and press Save changes:

Thus, S2S Postback URL changed from https://tr.outbrain.com/pixel?ob_click_id={ref_id}&name=CONVERSION_EVENT_NAME&orderValue={offer_payout} to https://tr.outbrain.com/pixel?ob_click_id={ref_id}&name=conversion example&orderValue={offer_payout}

3. Create a Campaign in RedTrack.

Once you’ve saved the Campaign, a click URL (your tracking link) is automatically generated:

You will need this Click URL to lunch the campaign in Outbrain, so proceed with step 4 below.

4. Launch a campaign in Outbrain.

Expand to see how to launch a campaign in Outbrain

4.1 open the Campaigns tab > click Create Campaign:

4.2 fill in the details:  campaign name, your business goal, etc. Add the tracking parameters from step 3 (all parameters after the “?” in your tracking link) from RedTrack into the Suffix field:

4.3 click Next: Content button:

4.4 put the first part of the tracking URL (till the “?”) to the URL field and add creatives, title, etc.:

4.5 click the Launch campaign button:

5. Set the postback.

Since the S2S postback link has already been added to our template, it will automatically appear in the Campaign settings:

6. Integrate Outbrain with your RedTrack account.

Expand to see how to integrate Outbrain with RedTrack

6.1 as Outbrain has an API restriction on every new account you need to apply for it first. Once approved you will see the following in the dropdown of your Account settings:

6.2 in RedTrack go to the Outbrain template (added within step 1) ->fill in the details in the Outbrain API integration section (Email, Password, Account ID) and press Save changes:

What should be inserted in the Outbrain API integration section depends on the account type:

  • if this is a self-served account, this particular customer’s data (Email, Password) should be inserted;
  • if this is a corporate-driven account, you should insert email and password of the person who has access to the API integration.

Example:

Email field:

  • if your account is a self-served one, insert the “ACCOUNT” value from Outbrain:

  • if this is the company-managed account, then the email should be of the person within the company who has access to the API integration should be inserted.

Password field:

  • if your account is a self-served one, insert your Outbrain account password;
  • if this is the company-managed account, then the password should be of the person within the company who has access to the API integration should be inserted.

Account ID: type in your Outbrain account ID. It can be found in the URL:

6.3 API integration gives you the following benefits:

  • Pause: campaign, placement, creative
  • Create automated rules

7. Set the automation and enjoy!

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