Trends for 2022 in campaign tracking: CPM, CPC, CPA pricing tokens
With this release, we roll out several tokens you can apply to your campaigns to keep your spendings under control and improve ads’ efficiency.
A token (also “tag” or “macros”) is a placeholder with a specific dynamic parameter that pulls out data from Adsterra and sends it to your tracking system.
Tokens are applied to the URL of your landing page or offer. You should keep to the specific syntax when using them.
Among the new pricing tokens are:
##COST_CPC## — cost per click — passes the cost of the click you set in your campaign.
##COST_CPM## — cost-per-mille — allows for tracking the cost of each 1,000 impressions.
##COST_CPA## — cost-per-action — keeps the cost of conversion in front of you.
As you can see, these are sets of characters that will take the data about your pricing settings and pass it to the tracking system._
Custom Bid tracking
You may have already used our smart Custom Bid tool. So as to say, your bid for the selected traffic sources may differ from that you set for the whole campaign. In this case, Adsterra will pass the Custom Bid’s value along with the cost of the campaign.
How to add a pricing token to your CPM/CPC/CPA campaign
Ok, we’ve found out that cost tracking tokens keep you informed about the campaign bids, and which syntax to use when you want to apply them.
Now we are going to add a little practice. Let us guide you through how you can start making use of the new Adsterra tokens.
First, you need to log in to your tracking platform and your Advertiser’s account on Adsterra.
#1 Generate a postback to set up in your tracking system
You can skip this step if you have already integrated Adsterra with your tracker. If not, that’s how you can do it.
On your Adsterra account, open the Tracking tab and hit Conversion tracking.
Choose the postback type on Step 1.
On Step 2 choose your tracker from the list (or hit Custom).
Finally, click the Generate postback button (Step 3).
On Step 4, Adsterra asks you to test the postback URL by adding your landing page URL with conversion (##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)##) and traffic (##PLACEMENT_ID##) tokens. You can put this step off until you start connecting Adsterra and your tracker for real 🙂
You will need to add the postback URL you generated to your tracker now.
#2 Create a campaign with one of the pricing tokens on Adsterra
After you have generated a postback URL and set it up in your tracking system, you will need to sign in to your Advertiser’s account.
When you’re in, please open the Campaigns tab and hit Create campaign.
On Step 1 (General settings), you see an empty field where you need to place your landing page or offer’s URL. Here is where you will enter pricing tokens.
Please note
Most trackers generate their own URLs for your campaigns. So, you will need to copy one from your tracker and paste it in the landing URL field here, on Adsterra.
#3 How to add the tokens to a landing/offer’s URL?
Ok, you have the correct URL to lead your traffic from Adsterra. And we’re still on Step 1 – General settings.
Now please choose your Pricing type (the token you add must match the pricing you picked). You have 3 options for that: CPM, CPC, and CPA.
Then, set a price/bid for the country you target.
Now the token has all pieces of data to collect.
Paste the URL and type in the coherent token type so that it looked like:
After you submit a campaign and the traffic starts pouring in, tokens will collect the costs of impressions, clicks, or conversions and then pass them to your tracking system.
Beneficial use cases of CPM, CPC, CPA pricing tracking tokens
Bidding is not a lifelong strategy, as traffic soars and drops under dozens of factors. By keeping all your costs under control, you raise chances to stay ahead of the market competition.
1. Compare campaigns’ efficiency between several ad networks
You frequently have to run several campaigns on various ad networks. These may be campaigns for with same GEO and for the same product. It will help a lot if you could compare which network brings you more traffic or conversions. Now you got a clue thanks to pricing tokens!
2. React faster when traffic drops
When running ads on a hot sale season, you usually compete harshly. Traffic volatility can either become your friend or tread down your efforts. When you have your campaign costs in front of you, you react faster by changing bids
3. Avoid overspending when you receive enough traffic
Supposing you have launched multiple campaigns, say, over 20 for various GEOs. You need to control spendings. One GEO may start draining your budget, and if it isn’t a strategic country, you can either pause the campaign or decrease your bid.
4. Keep an eye on the best traffic sources
When you select a bunch of placements that stream you better traffic and lift their payout (Custom Bid), you need to retain their performance as long as possible.
Adsterra pricing tokens allow for tracking all your Custom bids along with the general price. Hence, you win precious time and outrun the competition by increasing custom bids when you see traffic starts fading away.
Bonus 1: List of tokens available on Adsterra
Coming up to the end of this brief guide, we would like to list all tokens you can use to enhance your campaign tracking.
Tokens can tell you all you need to know about users: country, OS, browser, websites where conversion took place, etc. You can even set up tokens for tracking which of your creatives broke the bank.
- ##ADVERTISER_ID## — Advertiser’s ID
- ##CAMPAIGN_ID## — ID of a campaign
- ##BANNER_ID## — ID of a banner/creative
- ##LANDING_ID## — ID of your landing page
- ##PUBLISHER_ID## — ID of the publisher
- ##ZONE_ID## — ID of the zone
- ##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)## – our click ID
- ##PLACEMENT_ID## — ID of the placement. This is the main macros for optimization.
- ##BROWSER_NAME## — Name of the Browser
- ##REMOTE_COUNTRY## — Full name of the Country
- ##COUNTRY_CODE## — 2-symbols Country Code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
- ##COUNTRY_CODE_A3## — 3-symbols Country Code ( ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 )
- ##REMOTE_IP## — Surfer’s IP
- ##REMOTE_LANGUAGE## — ID of the user’s browser language
- ##TIMESTAMP## — Unix Timestamp
- ##USERAGENT## — UserAgent
- ##USERAGENT_DEC## — UserAgent (non-encoded)
- ##USER_OS## — User’s OS
- ##USER_OS_VER## — User’s OS version
- ##USER_CARRIER## — User’s ISP name (Maxmind database)
- ##CATEGORY_ALIAS## — Name of the publisher’s category
- ##IAB_CATEGORY## — IAB standards category
- ##RANDOM_ID## — Random ID
- ##COST_CPM##, ##COST_CPC##, ##COST_CPA## — Pricing tokens
Bonus 2: The list of tracking systems with a one-click or simplified integration
Adsterra is proud of serving advertisers an effortless integration with market-leading and reputable tracking systems. Make sure you have read their documentation, too, as you will need to set up a postback URL.
Here is the list with some of our integrations:
- Voluum (also read about the advanced tracking use cases by Voluum experts)
- Keitaro
- Cake
- PeerClick
- Hasoffers
- BeMob
- Binom
Conclusion
CPM, CPC, CPA pricing tokens make campaigns’ tracking crystal clear. They dynamically track prices you set while creating a campaign, which gives you loads of insights:
- How various ad networks succeed in running your ads on the same GEOs.
- Which traffic sources swallow your budgets, and which ones are the most prominent investors in your profit.
- Shall you hold the increased bid for the chosen placement, or it’s about time to curb the payout.
- …and dozens more.
Success is volatile, but with Adsterra tracking tokens, you harness tendencies and react faster, making the most of your traffic sources.
