Comprehensive configuration Tracking -Voluum+Decisive+F5media+Mobile Cookbook- (47)

A small guide that gives exactly what to fill in on Voluum.

As total newbies, it took us time to grasph how to setup the tracking. http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...obile-Cookbook That is why we made a guide. As we always believe in giving value, feel free to support us via Skype with extra tips: skype: brokkie_0808 . Oh and we still did something wrong, feel free to adjust the guide.

Before we go into the step by step, first it is important to understand the way communication is established.

CPA network --> Tracker --> Traffic source-->Tracker-->CPA network.

1) You fill in your traffic source in Voluum
2) You get a offer link from your CPA network (which you adjust manually), you copy this link into Voluum
3) After putting all the information, Voluum produces a link for each campaign set up.
4) You put this link into decisive. You can now setup Decisive accordingly.
5) From Voluum you can produce a postback URL, you give that one to your Affiliate Manager, so he can set everything right.

1) You fill in your traffic source in Voluum

1. Login
2. Go to traffic sources
This settings are only valid for Decisive. Dont use it for other traffic source.



Postback url: http://win.crwd.io/convert/{externalid}

Parameter Placeholder Name
External Id bidhash {{{bidhash}}}
Cost
Custom Variable 1 media {{{media}}} Media
Custom Variable 2 placement {{{placement}}} Placement
Custom Variable 3 category {{{category}}} Category
Custom Variable 4 subcategory {{{subcategory}}} SubCategory
Custom Variable 5 carrier {{{carrier}}} Carrier
Custom Variable 6 os {{{os}}} Os
Custom Variable 7 device {{{device}}} Device
Custom Variable 8 adid {{{ad_id}}} Adid
Custom Variable 9 adname {{{ad_name}}} Campaign
Custom Variable 10 cid {{{creative_id}}} Creative

And save.

2) You get a offer link from your CPA network (which you adjust manually), you copy this link into Voluum

3. Goto Offer


Click New Offer
For url:
First copy the link from you Affiliate Network (in our case f5media). Should be something like this: http://f5mtrack.com/?a=xxxxx&c=xxxxx&s1=

Now change the link so that it looks like:
http://f5mtrack.com/?a=xxxxx&c=xxxxx&s1={campaign.id}&s2={clickid}&s3= {var10}&s4={var1}&s5=

Very important to keep the s2={clickid} exactly as that
Make sure that in your traffic source (decisive) the first custom variable given (var1) is media. (this way it will track if its app or site).
And make sure Custom variable 10 is the creative id. This way you know which creative worked best when looking inside your Affiliate Network report panel.
Now leave the rest as is.

Copy this link to the URL in voluum.

3) After putting all the information, Voluum produces a link for each campaign set up.

Now for the name:
After the part that already exists add the following:
Offername - Wifi - App

Now repeat the process for every angle and setup as discussed.
So we end up with the following names

Affiliate - Country - Offer - Wifi - App
Affiliate - Country - Offer- Wifi - Site
Affiliate - Country - Offer- Carrier - App
Affiliate - Country - Offer- Carrier - Site

Dont forget to alter the urls of the offer accordingly

4. Campagin
Goto carrier


New campaign and start filling up:
● Traffic source : decisive
● Country: SOMETHING
● Cost model : CPC
● CPC: 0.0X
● Check Direct Linking
● Offer: The Defined offer as in previous step: only 1 should be selected.
● Name: Same as offer method (Angle - Wifi - App)

Hit save.

For the cost model you really want to use auto, but decisive doesn’t support the cost variable so we have to use a placeholder. The real data can be pulled from decisive directly and used in your research and recalculate the ROI.

3) After putting all the information, Voluum produces a link for each campaign set up.
4) You put this link into decisive. You can now setup Decisive accordingly.

Now the campaign URL will be shown. Copy this link and use it as the campaign url in decisive.

Repeat this process the same amount for every angle you have and do it like so:
Affiliate - Country - Offer - Angle1 - Wifi - App
Affiliate - Country - Offer - Angle1 - Wifi - Site
Affiliate - Country - Offer - Angle1 - Carrier - App
Affiliate - Country - Offer - Angle1 - Carrier - Site

Hopefully voluum will allow filterring on custom variables. Than we only have to add one campaign per angle and we have a great report in an instant. Which can filter the Wifi/Carrier And App/Site out. This will save some initial setup work and gives beter overviews of the data.

5) From Voluum you can produce a postback URL, you give that one to your Affiliate Manager, so he can set everything right.

5. Affiliate setup
Now to give the AM the url to postback to Voluum.

Goto settings -> setup and click on the Clipboard button as shown in the image below



It looks something like this:
http://xxxxx.trackvoluum.com/postback?cid={REPLACE}&payout={OPTIONAL}

Now change {REPLACE} with #s2#
and {OPTIONAL} with #price#

so you will end up with:
http://xxxxx.trackvoluum.com/postbac...payout=#price#

Give this url to your AM so they can fill it in.

That is it.
Have fun.

*small notice: this only works if the Affiliate Network uses Cake.
p.s. please notice this guide is without a lander, feel free to add that part of the guide below.

Amazing guide mate, thanks for sharing.

I am sure a lot of other people are having issues with the same setup so this will help a lot.

Nice attempt at a guide mate! A few suggestions:

1. This - CPA network --> Tracker --> Traffic source-->Tracker-->CPA network.
Are you talking about click flow or the process you go through in setting up a campaign? You must mean the latter, in which case I would make the 5 points below be consistent, i.e. 1. get offer URL from CPA network, 2. tracker setup, etc.

2. Upload your images to somewhere like imgur and insert them into the post rather than using attachments - the forum has a habit of shrinking them.

3. The postback URL is pretty easy to place in CAKE, perhaps add a screenshot at the end showing where to place it? That would make your *note only applicable to Cake P.S. make sense as well, since if you give the postback URL to your AM they're going to correct it anyway if it's using things like #s2# when it shouldn't be.

Thanks, this is awesome, will def follow this guide when I switch to Voluum. I have recently figured out how to set up CPVLab with Decisive and cake, can post a similar guide like this one if anyone is interested

Thanks man. I just started using Voluum. This guide is awesome

Originally Posted by mling1985

Thanks, this is awesome, will def follow this guide when I switch to Voluum. I have recently figured out how to set up CPVLab with Decisive and cake, can post a similar guide like this one if anyone is interested

Thanks for the guide.
The custom variables are different than the ones recommended at Decisive here: http://help.decisive.is/knowledgebas...uctions-voluum

Is there any reason on why we wouldn't track app, site and ISP in Voluum?

Wow - exactly what I was struggling with! Thanks so much!

Originally Posted by servandosilva

Thanks for the guide.
The custom variables are different than the ones recommended at Decisive here: http://help.decisive.is/knowledgebas...uctions-voluum

Is there any reason on why we wouldn't track app, site and ISP in Voluum?

Damn, very very nice tutorial

Originally Posted by zeno

{{{placement}}} tracks both apps and sites - it uses whichever is appropriate, i.e. it switches between {{{app}}} and {{{site}}} dynamically.

I'm not sure what you mean about ISP - it is tracked via {{{carrier}}}. You should pass this even if your tracking system records the ISP, because the values may differ. Since you optimise at Decisive's end, it's important to base decisions on their carrier data, not so much on Voluums (though it is useful for comparison and finding discrepancies).

If you have separate campaigns in Voluum for app and site, then no - these campaigns above will need different URLs.

Each Voluum campaign has a separate URL. They will not divvy clicks between each other.

If you want to split app/site/wifi/3g into separate campaigns in Voluum, you will need each of these campaigns to have their own URL in Decisive. You could also send them all to one campaign, i.e. give them all the same URL, and rely on tokens e.g. {{{media}}} to log where the clicks came form in Voluum - these will just be listed in the data, e.g. 1150 clicks from wifi, 1207 clicks from 3g, etc.

Since Voluum doesn't yet support drilldown reports for custom variables, I highly recommend splitting app/site/wifi/3g into their own campaigns in Voluum.

Originally Posted by zeno

If you have separate campaigns in Voluum for app and site, then no - these campaigns above will need different URLs.

Each Voluum campaign has a separate URL. They will not divvy clicks between each other.

If you want to split app/site/wifi/3g into separate campaigns in Voluum, you will need each of these campaigns to have their own URL in Decisive. You could also send them all to one campaign, i.e. give them all the same URL, and rely on tokens e.g. {{{media}}} to log where the clicks came form in Voluum - these will just be listed in the data, e.g. 1150 clicks from wifi, 1207 clicks from 3g, etc.

Since Voluum doesn't yet support drilldown reports for custom variables, I highly recommend splitting app/site/wifi/3g into their own campaigns in Voluum.

Haha you basterd, I found them and turned them on and it broke my traffic sources section too. I submitted a report.

I'm not using that section so don't care, but I don't know if those columns are meant to be there. If they are, it would give you a massive list and yes! You should be able to export them and filter.

Originally Posted by zeno

Haha you basterd, I found them and turned them on and it broke my traffic sources section too. I submitted a report.

I'm not using that section so don't care, but I don't know if those columns are meant to be there. If they are, it would give you a massive list and yes! You should be able to export them and filter.

1) Yes. Since you can duplicate campaigns both in Decisive and Voluum, it really is quite trivial to compartmentalise the data like this (and it makes rule-based redirection and path changes easier).

2) You can see them when you drilldown into anything, e.g. campaigns or offer or lander. You choose one of the variables in the "Group By" dropdown boxes.

Can anyone explain how to configur when using landing page? I got lead on affiliate network but decisive and Voluum not showing any.

I have problem in tracking cost using Voluum for Decisive, as the cost value is not fixed if bid under SCPM method. Anyone knows how to set up the auto tracking for cost (using SCPM)?

And I end up using the ultimate solution. My Excel sheet.

Originally Posted by hunterxhunter

Can anyone explain how to configur when using landing page? I got lead on affiliate network but decisive and Voluum not showing any.

Originally Posted by ziyiteh

I have problem in tracking cost using Voluum for Decisive, as the cost value is not fixed if bid under SCPM method. Anyone knows how to set up the auto tracking for cost (using SCPM)?

And I end up using the ultimate solution. My Excel sheet.

oh thanks. sigh.

sorry for the very basic question - do you need 1 or 3 squiggly brackets around the placeholder? guide says 3 but my Voluum defaults 1

and another....

if i have separate campaigns for app/site/wifi/3g should i also set up a separate offer for each campaign?

Originally Posted by lavamyz

sorry for the very basic question - do you need 1 or 3 squiggly brackets around the placeholder? guide says 3 but my Voluum defaults 1

thanks!

so i'd have 4 campaigns set up assuming i had 1 angle;

country/offer/app/wifi
country/offer/app/3g
country/offer/site/wifi
country/offer/site/3g

and one offer.

(kinda like i'd have if i was setting up a campaign in pof and was split testing ages, intent that sort of thing)

this is the bit thats causing me to scratch my head;

s4 = Wifi Or 3g With {var1}
Only this one has to change.


which seems to suggest i'd need an offer for wifi and an offer for 3g?

apologies for the mobile-newbie-dumbness!!!!

Originally Posted by lavamyz

thanks!

so i'd have 4 campaigns set up assuming i had 1 angle;

country/offer/app/wifi
country/offer/app/3g
country/offer/site/wifi
country/offer/site/3g

and one offer.

(kinda like i'd have if i was setting up a campaign in pof and was split testing ages, intent that sort of thing)

this is the bit thats causing me to scratch my head;

s4 = Wifi Or 3g With {var1}
Only this one has to change.


which seems to suggest i'd need an offer for wifi and an offer for 3g?

apologies for the mobile-newbie-dumbness!!!!

Ahhhhh.... Clear as glass! Muchos Gracias

Hey! I don't get this part:

On my cell At the moment so can't check but almost certain there is no space, it was just the way it was formatted in the thread. I.e...

S3={var10}

If I want to use another Affiliate Network, lets say Affiliaxe.

Should i just change the "&s1=" with "&aff_sub="

Their link looks like this:

http:// performance.affiliaxe.com/aff_c?offer_id=xxxx&aff_id=xxxxx&aff_sub=test

It's working fine.

A visit = a visit to your tracking link.

A click = someone who had been sent to a lander and subsequently clicked through.

A conversion = a conversion.

Voluum considers direct-linked clicks as a visit only to avoid confusion. Voluum charges on a per-event basis so if direct-linking counted as a visit and a click you would get double charged for one event. Quite silly, no?

Originally Posted by zeno

You don't need to make a different offer for each campaign.

An offer is just the affiliate link for a specific network, so you would add one for each affiliate network link that you want to send traffic to.

http://appflood.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=xxxx&aff_id=xxxx&aff_sub={campaign.id}&aff_sub2={clickid}&aff_sub3={var10}&aff_sub4=3g{var1}&aff_sub5=

http://appflood.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=xxxx&aff_id=xxxx&aff_sub={campaign.id}&aff_sub2={clickid}&aff_sub3={var10}&aff_sub4=

http://xxxx.voluumtrk.com/postback?c...&txid=OPTIONAL

http://xxxx.voluumtrk.com/postback?cid={aff_sub2}&payout={payout}&txid=OPTIONAL

1/2/
Creating multiple offers just to change something in the query string (all data after the ?) is nonsensical.

I'm not sure why PIM hard-coded the 3g into the offer, you don't need to do that - and shouldn't do that.

Just use the second link you posted. It is fine. You will record all your data in Voluum so you don't need to pass it to the affiliate network - only {clickid} needs to be passed.

Also, be aware that you can put whatever you want in the custom variables and it will not change where the offer link goes. This is controlled by the affiliate network, not by you. For example:

http://appflood.go2cloud.org/aff_c?o...f_sub2=bananas

will take you to the same destination as:

http://appflood.go2cloud.org/aff_c?o...at&stm=awesome

The offers_id and aff_id control what and where this link goes. The rest is for you to pass data for reporting, though you need to use aff_sub, aff_sub2, etc. if you want the network to record it.


3/
As for your postback URL, your usage is correct. You can remove the &txid=OPTIONAL part.

4/

Which URL? You can't change the auto-generated campaign URL as this is based on the traffic source setup.

You can of course modify it however you want after you copy it and use it in your traffic source.

The point of the traffic source setup is so that the campaign URL Voluum generates doesn't need any other changes to it, other than e.g. changing a creative=REPLACE part if your traffic source doesn't have a token for something.As for your postback URL, just go to the offer at your network. You're using the HasOffers platform, so there is a place on the offer page to insert your postback URL yourself.

Thank you for your detailed help Zeno. So as it seemed all the links were correct, expecpt something in decisive. I got conversions in AppFlood and also in Voluum, but not in Decisive itself. Whats the matter here? Its really frustrating, because I have to blacklist sources that spend more than 3x my payout, if they dont have made a conversion, but I cant see where the conversions came from.

As you recommended I tried to find the problem. I duplicated my offer and set it up with the new link (without 3G/Wifi). It looks like this now. (I edit the ID with xxxx myself, so everything should be correct)

http://appflood.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=xxxx&aff_id=xxxx&aff_sub={campaign. id}&aff_sub2={clickid}&aff_sub3={var10}&aff_sub4=

I also duplicated all my campaigns in Voluum and connected the new campaign links with my Decisive campaigns, and click are coming trough, but didnt get any new conversions yet.

What really grinds my gears is, that I still dont see the old conversions. I updated the postback URL in AppfFlood as you told me.

I think there is seomthing wrong with the AppFlood - Decisive connection. I missed yomething out, but I dont know what. Do you know any common mistakes? I read post #38 in this thread and did all the recommeneded things, still didnt help yet.

What look weird to me is, that in the Decsive campaign it shows me this:



ANd in Voluum it shows me this as a postback:



So two diefferent things, and my postback in AppFlood is also different like in the previous post. I tried to mach them together, but I cant edit it in Decisive. WHen I change it in the Voluum campaign tho, nothing happens. I really dont know where the mistake is.

So far I spent only $15 on my campaigns, maybe I should set up EVERETHING from new? OR should i just wait for new conversions, cause I cant get back the stats from the old ones, when the trackinglinks may be wrong before?

Your Voluum and Appflood configuration is fine.

Appflood should communicate with Voluum only - not with Decisive. Voluum talks to Decisive.

You won't see old conversions.

Postback URLs happen in real time. Once you update it and get it working, it will only process new conversions.

However if you have passed Voluum's click IDs this entire time, you can simply download the aff_sub2 values from Appflood for which conversions have happened and manually upload these to Voluum in the setup section.

Your postback URL in Voluum that goes to Decisive is fine.

You should check that your URL used in Decisive ads has ...externalid={{{bidhash}}} or similar in it.

If you go to your traffic source setup in Voluum it will have an external ID part. For that the placeholder should be {{{bidhash}}}. You need to be passing this in your ad URL at Decisive or Voluum won't be able to communicate with them.

Perhaps you should outline every single step of the process with screenshots and exact URLs.

1. Decisive URL used.
2. Traffic source setup in Voluum
3. Campaign config in Voluum
4. Offer URL used
5. Postback URL at network.

3-5 look fine so far so I imagine the issue is somewhere in 1/2.

So just to be clear, if I only want to promote 1 offer from F5 Media, I only need to add 1 offer on Voluum right?
And then I create 4 campaign for Site-wifi, Site-mobile, App-wifi, App-mobile, all of these campaign linking to that 1 offer?

I'm a little bit confused because from what I read on the first page, I need to create 4 offers in Voluum.

Is there any tutorial if I want to use landing page instead of direct linking?

Yes, that's correct.

Everything is modular - you only ever need to add a lander or an offer once. You can send traffic from 10 different sources, through 100 different campaigns, to the same lander without problems - same with offers.

Landers are simple.

Add their URL. In the lander's code, change the CTA link URL - the one which you want to take people through to your offer(s), to http://abcde.trackvoluum.net/click - i.e. the URL located in the setup section in your Voluum panel (cog, top right). You use this click URL for every lander, hence why they can act universally.

Originally Posted by zeno

You should just make a separate campaign in Voluum for each of your 4 campaigns at Decisive.

This will simplify things a lot. It's trivial - just make one campaign in Voluum and then duplicate it > rename.

This makes data analysis easier.

Yes there is no point putting that &s4 part in.

What is {var:cid} passing?

Re: costs, yes, just update the CPC over time. Whatever the current CPC is sitting around, change it to that periodically. Your CPC will vary over time as you optimise so all you need to do is keep Voluum somewhat on track albeit delayed.

At the moment I believe cost tracking only effects clicks from current time onward.

Retrospective cost updating is something that has been asked for and is on Voluum's to-do list.

4. Campagin
Goto carrier
Click image for larger version.

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New campaign and start filling up:
● Traffic source : decisive
● Country: SOMETHING
● Cost model : CPC
● CPC: 0.0X
● Check Direct Linking
● Offer: The Defined offer as in previous step: only 1 should be selected.
● Name: Same as offer method (Angle - Wifi - App)



Question

How much should i set for CPC?
Sorry. Newbie here

It depends on how much the traffic costs.

I wouldn't bid CPC to start, I would use smart CPM. Follow the mobile cookbook.

Thanks for the Guide

Quick question, why can't you simply track wifi or mobile with by adding the tag {{{network}}} as one of the var

won't that work for decisive?

Originally Posted by kidooo

Thanks for the Guide

Quick question, why can't you simply track wifi or mobile with by adding the tag {{{network}}} as one of the var

won't that work for decisive?

Originally Posted by zeno

Yes, you should use that. There's no point hardcoding wifi/carrier into the link. I'll remove it from the post since it just causes confusion. FYI I did a video guide on this. http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ll-Video-Guide

Sorry to bump an old thread but it looks like it's now possible to drill down into the reports of Voluum to determine if the conversion comes from 'App/Site' and '3G/WIFI' etc. Do you still recommend having 4 separate campaigns within Voluum for APP/SITE WIFI/3G now we can drill down and view this information from within the reports?

Many thanks.