How to add a third-party measurement pixel to banners

in Revive Adserver

This article explains how to add a third-party measurement tag or pixel from an advertiser to a banner in the Revive Adserver software.

Introduction

Sometimes, an advertiser or their ad agency, will request that you add a measurement pixel or script to the banners you’re running for them. There can be several reasons for this, including:

  • The measurement pixel could be intended to enable them to validate that their banners get the number of impressions they’ve booked with you.
  • The pixel could enable them to count the banners you run for them as part of the overall campaign among a multitude of publishers.
  • The pixel could be used to validate that the banners you for them are being displayed on the domains they asked for (by means of domain detection).

Caution

Make sure not to confuse a third-party measurement pixel with a third-party ad tag. The use of third-party ad tags has been covered in a separate article. If you’re unsure if you’ve received the right tag type or code format, simply ask whoever provided the code for guidance.

Navigate to Banner Properties

In order to add the third-party measurement pixel to a banner, make sure to first create the corresponding banner. This is explained in a separate article.

Once the banner has been created and saved, you’ll end up in the list of existing banners on the campaign.

From this list, click on the name of the banner where you want to add the third-party measurement pixel. This will take you to the Banner Properties page of the banner.

Banner Overview - click to Banner Properties

Next, click the Advanced tab of the banner, which is where you’ll find the field in which you can add the third-party measurement pixel.

Banner Properties - Advanced tab

In the Advanced properties tab for any banner, you’ll find two fields, “prepend” and “append”.

Banner Advanced Properties

In either of these fields, you could enter or paste any valid HTML code or javascript code (or a combination of both). It is a common practice to add a third-party measurement pixel to the Append field for the banner.

In most cases, you’ll have received the measurement pixel in the form of a little snippet of javascript code. Simply copy the code you received and paste it into the Append field while making sure not to make any changes to it.

In some cases you’ll have received the measurement pixel in the form of just an URL. If that’s true, then you must make sure to turn it into the HTML code for a pixel that’s going to be invisible to site visitors.

Here is a template for a pixel that will be invisible. You’ll simply have to insert the pixel URL in this template.

<img src=”URL_GOES_HERE” alt=”” width=”0″ height=”0″ />

Once you’ve entered the pixel code, don’t forget to click the Save changes button.

How this works

Once you’ve added a third-party measurement pixel to a banner, the Revive Adserver software will seamlessly add it to the ad server output whenever the corresponding banner is selected and returned to the website.

The visitor’s browser received the code for the banner and the accompanying third-party measurement pixel. The browser will interpret the code and execute it. The act of executing the code of the third-party measurement pixel will trigger a count on the advertiser’s or agency’s system for an impression of their banner.