Feature Request: Allow Multiple campaigns with overlapping date ranges for email ad units

[wisconsindad]

Currently, only one active banner can target an email ad unit for any specific time range. The reasons for this are explained here: https://documentation.revive-adserver.com/display/DOCS/Only+One+Active+Banner+in+Email-Newsletter+Zones

We'd like to be able to run multiple campaigns with overlapping campaign dates (for example, all with the same start and end dates) with multiple active banners targeting the same email ad units. This is currently possible with other ad servers that have an email ad serving option such as Broadstreet, AdButler, PowerInbox, and others. These other ad servers typically include a place in the img src URL and the href URL for a unique ID macro from the email newsletter platform. For example, the tag would look something like this:

<a href=”adserver.adserverdomain.com/zone_static/83740/click/0?uid=EMAILPLATFORMUNIQUEIDMACROhere” target=”_blank”><img src=”adserver.adserverdomain.com/zone_static/83740/image/0?uid=EMAILPLATFORMUNIQUEIDMACROhere” style=”max-width:100%;height:auto;” /></a>

If the publisher uses Mailchimp the tag would look something like this:

<a href=”adserver.adserverdomain.com/zone_static/83740/click/0?uid=*|CAMPAIGN_UID|*” target=”_blank”><img src=”adserver.adserverdomain.com/zone_static/83740/image/0?uid=*|CAMPAIGN_UID|*” style=”max-width:100%;height:auto;” /></a>

[wisconsindad]

Would it make sense for us to use the image tag for banners with cachebusting enabled instead of the email ad invocation tag?

[Matteo Beccati]

How would you expect Revive to know which banner was clicked?

[wisconsindad]

Matteo - I do not know exactly how other ad servers do it but I do know all the ones I've used use the same basic non-javascript invocation code syntax revive uses with the main difference I notice being that they append a cachebuster to both the href url and the img src url.

[wisconsindad]

Matteo - I have been continuing to look into this and it does appear that appending a pairing macro or adding the cachebusting macro to both the image and href should do the trick. AdSpeed is another ad server that supports this sort of implementation and they indicate in their help docs that this approach allows the user to target multiple ads to the same zone.

Please see the help doc at https://www.adspeed.com/Knowledges/1492/Publishers/Zone-Email-Newsletter.html

"If your email marketing/delivery system supports macros (or "merge tags") that you can use inside your email campaign for customization. You can use these macros to add a matching value into the email ad tag in order to properly view and click for a zone with multiple ads....." {remaining detailed background explaining this at https://www.adspeed.com/Knowledges/1492/Publishers/Zone-Email-Newsletter.html}

Ad tag in email template (with macro/merge tags):

<a href="http://adserver/ad.php?do=clk&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@*|EMAIL_UID|**|DATE:mdyu|*" target="_blank">

<img src="http://adserver/ad.php?do=img&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@*|EMAIL_UID|**|DATE:mdyu|*" alt="ad" width="300" height="250" border="0" />

</a>

 

Ad tag when sending to Mary:

<a href="https://adserver/ad.php?do=clk&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@HashForMary11112014123" target="_blank">

<img src="https://adserver/ad.php?do=img&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@HashForMary11112014123" alt="ad" width="300" height="250" border="0"  />

</a>

 

Ad tag when sending to Bob:

<a href="https://adserver/ad.php?do=clk&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@HashForBob11112014125" target="_blank">

<img src="https://adserver/ad.php?do=img&zid=12345&wd=300&ht=250&pair=em@HashForBob11112014125" alt="ad" width="300" height="250" border="0"  />

</a>

 

The email marketing delivery systems we use (like mailchimp) do support macros so this will not be an issue but we would need the revive invocation code to have a parameter for use for the macro. I believe if you added the cb paramter to the href string (as it is already appended to the img src for cachebusting, you would then have the foundation for implementing the approach described above. So the cb macro would then serve as both a cache buster and a pairing mechanism just as the pair paramter above serves as both a pairing mechanism (to pair the image and the link) and a cachebuster (for the image). Is this something that could be implemented with Revive?

 

[wisconsindad]

Hello Matteo, Would it make sense for me to create a feature request/discussion related to this at https://github.com/revive-adserver/revive-adserver/issues

[Matteo Beccati]

Sorry, what you suggest requires Revive Adserver to track on permanent storage hashes and the banner that has been displayed, which is kind of a "server side" cookie storage. Being it email, it would also give no possibility for the end user to accept or not. I don't think this can be on the roadmap, especially given the current privacy concerns and laws.