53714 - Creating custom creative formats

Usage Note 53714: Creating custom creative formats

SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers has the ability to create custom creative formats for flexibility and control needed to serve simple and complex creatives.

There are several items being used when creating custom creative formats:

1. Pre-defined tokens: SAS Note 53297.
2. Dynamic tokens: SAS Note 53300.
3. Custom tokens: See below.
4. MIME types. Custom MIME types can be set for a creative format. These can be created by navigating to "Traffic -> MIME Types" in the UX.

Navigate to the Creative Formats tab after clicking the Traffic tab. Here a new creative format can be added or an existing format can be copied by selecting the Copy icon. by clicking the copy icon beside to the right of the name of the format. For the purposes of this document we will just create a new creative format.
Click the "Add New Creative Format" button.
Most fields are self-explanatory so the focus will be on the main customizations that can be done.

Format Fields
This is where custom tokens which are specific to this new creative format are defined:

Name the field. Only letters, numbers, underscores or dashes. For example:
Custom field name: tracking_url
Corresponding token: %%X_TRACKING_URL%%
When using the newly created creative format, the value entered into the custom field created replaces the corresponding token in the template code.
Note: Custom tokens are preceded with "X_" with the exception of a custom token which has the "Media" checkbox enabled, in which case the token should match the token field name.
As many custom fields as needed can be added.
There is also an option to set the field to "required". This makes the custom field a required field when using the creative format.

Format Template
Here is where the template code for the custom creative format is entered.

There is an option to set the MIME type on the creative format. This is useful when creating a VAST format and the MIME type needs to be "application/xml". The custom MIME type must exist before it can be selected from the dropdown. Below is an example of a simple creative which is tokenized and made into a creative format:


<html>
<img style="display: none;" src="http://urltopixel.com" alt="" />
<a href="http://urltoclick.com" target="_blank">
<img src="http://urltoimage.com/image.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
</a>
</html>

In this example a custom field named "tracking_url" is needed. This creates a field when using the creative format where a tracking URL for a third party is entered. Pre-defined tokens can be used for the click URL and the img src URL. Below is the tokenized version of the template that would be entered into the format template field:


<html>
<img style="display: none;" src="%%X_TRACKING_URL%%" alt="" />
<a href="%%CLICKURL%%" target="_blank">
<img src="%%MEDIA%%" border="0" alt="%%ALTTEXT%%" />
</a>
</html>

The corresponding token for "tracking_url" is %%X_TRACKING_URL%%.
%%CLICKURL%% is replaced with the click URL associated with the creative.
%%MEDIA%% is replaced with the "Media" field entry for the creative. This allows uploading a file or pointing to a URL where the file resides.
The %%ALTTEXT%% token is replaced with the "Alt text" field entry for the creative.

Another example here demonstrates using the pre-defined tokens to build an action url. Below is a snippet of the tracking event section of a VAST ad tag:


<xml>
<TrackingEvents>
	<Tracking event="start">%%BASEURL%%/count/actname=AdStart/fcid=%%FCID%%</Tracking>
	<Tracking event="midpoint">%%BASEURL%%/count/actname=AdMidPoint/fcid=%%FCID%%</Tracking>
	<Tracking event="firstQuartile">%%BASEURL%%/count/actname=AdFirstQuartile/fcid=%%FCID%%</Tracking>
	<Tracking event="thirdQuartile">%%BASEURL%%/count/actname=AdThirdQuartile/fcid=%%FCID%%</Tracking>
	<Tracking event="complete">%%BASEURL%%/count/actname=AdComplete/fcid=%%FCID%%</Tracking>
</TrackingEvents>
</xml>

This construct a URL that will execute each of the custom actions.

"%%BASEURL%%" This is replaced with the base URL to the SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers instance.
"/count/actname={custom action name}" This is the custom action for logging purposes.
%%FCID%%** This is replaced with the FCID of the served creative.

More information on using the pre-defined tokens article can be found at SA Note 53297.

Operating System and Release Information

Product Family	Product	System	SAS Release
			Reported	Fixed*
SAS System	SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers	N/A

* For software releases that are not yet generally available, the Fixed Release is the software release in which the problem is planned to be fixed.

Date Modified:	2014-08-08 15:23:38
Date Created:	2014-07-22 14:53:39

Type:	Usage Note
Priority:

Support

Usage Note 53714: Creating custom creative formats

Operating System and Release Information