What’s wrong with this pixel?
Vanity URLs – An Ugly Problem
Vanity URLs, also called “friendly URLs” or “FURLs” (pronounced to rhyme with Earl) are short catchy version of web page addresses designed to be easier to remember and type in manually.
e.g. “go to client.com/product”
The AdOps Motto
It may not be our fault, it is however our problem
Examples:
- The creative came over late but the campaign still needs to go live tomorrow.
- The URL we were given is the wrong one, it needs changing right away.
- It should actually be a leaderboard not an MPU, can you change it real quick?
Why you don’t need a naming convention
Hello & Welcome
“No, the tags aren’t ready yet”
The vast majority of what is written online about online advertising technology is aimed squarely at account directors and other senior decision makers. Their day to day roles are far removed from the actual setup and implementation of the systems discussed. If they’ve ever got their hands dirty at the coal face, digging the tags out, it was back when Jeeves was just starting his job answering questions for people, thinking he had a job for life.
What is written, if it contains any real technical information at all, are watered down details and shiny infographics that amount to little more than Jedi mind tricks to convince you to buy into them.
This *is* the attribution model you are looking for… *waves tenuous sports based analogy around*
Here is a quick test: take the press releases/articles/white papers/case studies/decks from a range of tech providers in the same area and remove/edit all the sales orientated bespoke buzzwords, silly slogans and luscious logos leaving behind just the basic facts. Can a colleague with a good understanding of the space link the right provider to the capabilities?
What this blog will attempt to do is provide all the gritty details of actually working with the various types of systems that make up a modern online ad campaign. We’ll be playing with pixel, going on adventures with adservers and scaring each other with tales from tag management.
That’s not to say that this blog and it’s contents won’t be of interest to account directors and planner/buyers, quite the opposite. The details contained within will be accessible and of interest to all. Just because you’ll never find yourself in a position where you have to check the redirects and polarity of a cookie syncing DMP decision tree tag using a regex filtered http headers tracer it would still be very useful for you to know what all those terms mean and just how ridiculous that statement is (hint: not as much as you might think!).
For the most part we’ll be staying away from any particular vendor’s technology, both good and bad, instead focusing on discussing the challenges faced in general, the facts with very little personal opinion, what best practice should be and why it so rarely is.
So read on and stay tuned. I promise you that you will learn something from this blog in almost every article that you read.
Why not start with one of the following:
Why you don’t need a name convention
Smart Pixels – Sometimes a Dumb Idea
Or if you are feeling more adventurous and have a bit more time on your hands read about an idea that if it worked could change the industry forever:
IDEA: Native Third Party Adservers – Defeat Adblocking in a Pro-Consumer Way