Impression/Click Tracking

Overview

Below explains how we track the impressions and clicks you see in the Reporting UI and API.

Impression Tracking - API Requests

When Kevel's Ad Decision Engine provides a Response to your Decision API Request, it'll include a field called impressionUrl, as shown below:

{
  "adId": 111,
  "creativeId": 222,
  "flightId": 333,
  "campaignId": 444,
  "clickUrl": "https://e-1234.adzerk.net/r?...",
  "impressionUrl": "https://e-1234.adzerk.net/i.gif?..."
  ...
}

This URL is unique to the ad, so if fired, it'll record that an impression happened for that particular ad.

In order to make it fire, you'll have to issue a GET or POST to this URL endpoint. Alternatively, you could place this impressionUrl directly on the page using an image tag, but we recommend issuing it server-side to help combat reporting discrepancies that could happen because of ad blockers. More info here.

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Impression tracking URLs expire after 24hrs. Impression URLs fired after 24hrs will return a 200 response, but no impression will be recorded.

If the same unique Impression URL is fired multiple times, multiple impressions will be recorded. Kevel does not deduplicate Impressions.

Click Tracking

Kevel tracks clicks with a click tracking URL. When a user clicks on an ad, this link records a click in our reporting server, and then redirects the user's browser to the creative's destination page. The URL looks like:

http://e-1234.adzerk.net/r?e=eyJ0cyI6MTM2Mjc3MT...In0&s=K9N90sUT247it9GXOEmh49HPmBY

If you use the click tracking macro %URL% when setting up a JavaScript/HTML type creative, Kevel automatically generates our tracking URL wherever the macro is placed in the creative.

In the Decision API Response, you'll see the click URL under the clickURL parameter.

{
  "adId": 111,
  "creativeId": 222,
  "flightId": 333,
  "campaignId": 444,
  "clickUrl": "https://e-1234.adzerk.net/r?...",
  "impressionUrl": "https://e-1234.adzerk.net/i.gif?..."
  ...
}

You'll want to grab this URL and redirect the user to it if they click on the ad. Alternatively you can also call to it server-side using a GET or POST request type.

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Kevel registers a click whenever a user clicks on an ad with a unique impression. If a user clicks on the same ad multiple times without refreshing the page, we will not register new impressions, and therefore will not count the clicks after the initial click.

A click fired without an associated impression is tracked as a valid click and recorded.

Click tracking URLs do not expire.

Bot Filtering

Bot filtering refers to the automatic filtering-out of impressions from bots and spiders. A request from a detected bot or spider will be fulfilled, but the impression or subsequent clicks will not be logged in our reporting system.