Usage Note 53258: Serving Ads to E-mails and Newsletters
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For newsletter e-mails, the iserver method is recommended because most e-mail clients do not parse Javascript (for security reasons). Therefore, the hserver, jserver, and bserver methods do not work. This limitation restricts the type of creative that can be delivered to image files. The iserver method does not allow a unique identification number (FCID) to be inserted, which positively correlates clicks at any time to the <a href> URL after the creative has been served. The result can be incorrect click-throughs.
Some e-mail clients (Hotmail, for example) perform additional encoding on the path portion of outgoing URLs embedded in e-mails. Such clients tend to corrupt requests from SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers when the targeting parameters are given in the URL path. Therefore, it is a best practice for these types of ad requests to provide all targeting parameters in the URL's query string. As with all query strings, parameters must be delimited with ampersands ("&"). The iserver and adclick directives must remain part of the URL path.
E-mail newsletter content management systems typically allow the use of variable tokens so that a unique mid={unique value} can be placed in the <img src> and <a href> URLs. Variable tokens help distinguish the ad request as unique (mid is the default cookie name for SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers) and to identify a set of ad calls in the newsletter as coming from a specific visitor (because e-mail readers typically do not accept cookies). A mid value can be the recipient's e-mail address (a unique value).
Additionally, it is a best practice to include pid={unique value} in the URLs to distinguish between the various ad requests and to increase the chances of pairing the correct click-through URL with the creative that was served. Each ad request in the e-mail should have a unique PID value. For example, if there are three ad calls, the mid value would be the same for all three ad calls, but the PID value should be different for each ad call.
Finally, it is best practice to also include hint=x in the URLs to ensure that the original impression and any eventual click are paired and handled properly when no FCID is present. This is needed because some email clients will handle a cookie with the rendered ad request but not the click-thru request (or vice-versa) which can result in the adserver not being able to find the pid value to match the correct click-thru with the ad served. hint=x forces the adserver to use the mid value to send the request or click-thru to the engine where the visitor's session is held. Note that the x in hint=x is literal; no other substitution is needed. It should be made the same in all URLs.
Like the targeting parameters themselves, the mid, pid, and hint values should all be expressed in the URL's query string, and their values should be the same in the <a href> and <img src> sections. The mid, pid, and hint values as well as each targeting key=value pair in the query string should be separated by ampersands ("&").
Example:
<a href=“http://adserver.com/{customer ID}/adclick?hint=x&mid={some unique value per visitor}&pid={some unique value per placement}&{ad call targeting}”>
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Operating System and Release Information
| Product Family | Product | System | SAS Release | |
| Reported | Fixed* | |||
| SAS System | SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers | N/A | ||
| Type: | Usage Note |
| Priority: |
| Date Modified: | 2015-12-09 09:34:10 |
| Date Created: | 2014-06-19 15:10:00 |