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Basic setting up Voluum questions (9)

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I am setting up tracking in Voluum, based on these guides:
http://charlesngo.com/voluum-campaign-setup/ and http://iamattila.com/voluum-tutorial...-to-voluum.php
and have some very newbie questions.

Firstly, when setting up the offer, there are numerous URL tokens available. I just used the ones suggested in Charles Ngo's guide, however why are these two only used? When would I want to use the others?


Secondly, when setting up the traffic source, IAmAttilla's guide says fields are generally optional, however for the sake of completion, where do I obtain the postback URL and pixel redirect URL? Also, on the right side there is a column of checkboxes to track. Above it says unchecking track will not affect report results, but the question mark next to it says it will determine what is included in reports? so I should check them all?


Finally, when selecting cost model, when would I select "do not track" vs "cpc" and "cpa"? And where do I obtain those numbers? Is it the offer payout?


Finally, for the silliest of all my questions....Which URL do I use when setting up my campaign in decisive? The unique link in my offer network, or the campaign URL created by Voluum? Pretty sure its the one in voluum, but want to confirm.

thanks and sorry for the simple questions.

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Actually it is up to you what tokens you want to use. The ClickID is a token what you definitely need. Everytime a user clicks on your banner, he'll visit the campaign link and receive a unique ClickID. When a conversion occurs, the CPA Network will postback to your Voluum Postback URL with that ClickID so Voluum knows what person converted. I personally use only the ClickID (I don't use the Campaign ID). You would use the other tokens if you'd like to pass those information to the CPA Network (e.g OS Version etc.) but I cannot see the purpose in that. Maybe an advanced Affiliate Marketer can?

Normally you can add Decisive using the Traffic Source template. The Postback URL should be already there. You can obtain the Postback URL from the Trafficsource.
For Decisive on Voluum it's
The Pixel Redirect URL is not necessary if you use the Postback URL. And yes, check all. If you input the Postback URL, Voluum will postback to Decisive with the bidhash, so Decisive knows what banner converted. You'll be able to check your conversions on Decisive then as well.
CPC => Cost Per Click ; CPA => Cost per Action => ; Do not track => Well, do not track lol.
When you advertise on a traffic source you can select the cost-modell. CPC would be, you pay per click. If someone clicks on your banner, you pay your defined price for one click.
CPA is Cost per Action. This means that you pay if an action is completed. This is probably used if you advertise an offer on another network but you do not need this.
You can specify your price of your selected cost modell in Voluum so it calculates for you the ROI (So you can see how much you have spent). I will track my costs and ROI in an Excel file though as I use the CPM Cost Modell (Cost per 1000 Impressions).
Use the Campaign URL, created by Voluum.

Hope you got it. There are no silly questions. That's why we're here I'm still a noob in Paid Traffic AM but I'm willing to share what I have learned

Back to studying Math... Bai!

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You pass through whatever information you choose to. This info goes to the affiliate network, so you can pass whatever you deem appropriate. Since tracking systems are very good at showing you the EPC/CVR and so on of very granular combinations, you don't need to pass much other than a click ID. However, it is generally a good idea to pass some information that characterises your traffic e.g. publisher IDs and lander IDs, so that advertisers can give feedback on lead quality down to the pub/lander level.

This can be useful for a number of reasons. Example: your average lead quality is terrible and the advertiser has no choice but to kick you off. However if you had passed publisher IDs, they may be able to see that 20% of your traffic actually comes from publishers giving high value leads - they could bump your payout and ask for more volume from these, leading to you scaling a campaign. Similarly, they may find certain landers are better than others and ask you to optimise accordingly. Being transparent with certain things gives you more scope for negotiation (just don't get carried away and basically tell them the ins and outs of your campaign).

Ignore pixel redirect URL for now. The postback URL here is for sending conversion information back to a traffic source. That source has to support server-to-server conversion tracking. You can get the postback URL from them, usually from their support docs or interface.

This is traffic source costs. Most traffic sources you work with will work on a CPM or CPC model. Some will let you bid and pay an exact CPC for traffic, so you can put this in. Others let you bid CPC but you pay a varying amount (e.g. Facebook). When you bid CPM, your cost per click varies with CPM and CTR. So, at the end of the day the best you can usually do is put an average CPC and change it as time goes on to be more accurate.

Since click prices will vary at the publisher/targeting level and change with CTR, CPM and so on, you can't be that accurate here so overall campaign ROI can be reasonable but ROI of individual metrics will be off, best not to rely on it. When you really want to know the profit/loss/ROI of certain banners, placements, etc., you need to compare network and traffic source stats or use conversion tracking from the traffic source.

CPA would be when you are working with a traffic source that charges only on conversions.

You use the URL found in the campaigns section - the one that is generated when you first save a campaign. It will have a unique URL followed by a query string with key/value pairs (e.g. ?something=this&something=that) which is dictated by the custom variable setup in your traffic sources section.

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Thanks so much both of you!

Just waiting on my AM to get back to me for creative approval, and I will be launching!

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So when setting up a new campaign, and I have no cpc data yet, should I just not track costs for a half day or so, and then update the campaign with this info, or should I start off with a random value? Or does it ultimately not matter?

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Ultimately you should use conversion tracking from the traffic source (where available) in tandem to get the best picture of P/L.

Otherwise, I would manually compare ad/placement spend/revenue for the first day and add an average CPC afterward.

Voluum is eventually going to roll out retrospective cost updating I imagine, so in the end it won't be that important.

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Hey Guys. Sorry to take over your thread but i had a similar question. I am trying to figure out the pixel redirect URL.
Does the traffic source url Click ID have to match your Voluum click id var?
So lets say my traffic source is click id s2 does that mean that my Voluum pixel has to be in the var 2 spot.

Campaign link www.test.com/f01318701656?source=[spotid]&adelickid=[clickid]

Voluum pixel:http://346364.trackvoluum.com/postba...&txid=OPTIONAL

Traffic source link http://www.trafficspot.com/script/re...le=INSERT_HERE

Thanks
Gabriel

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Hi Zeno,

I have beyond hosting. Im trying to setup a custom domain for Voluum. Have no idea how to set it up. Any insights?

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Not sure if this helps.. But here is how to do it on godaddy.. Same idea just different tabs and such..




"For example, I grab the domain mobileoffer.com

1) Open your GoDaddy dashboard, log in and go to your “Manage my Domains” area.
You’ll find all your domains there. Remember not to use this domain for anything else other than tracking. Please check Screen

2) You are going to CNAME your domain to your Voluum's account. It will be something like: abcde.trackvoluum.com.
The first 5 letters are unique to your account (abcde). Copy that link. Please check Screen

3) Now go back to your domain name settings on Godaddy and click the “DNS Zone File” tab. Now click the “Add record” option:
Please check Screen

4) You’ll need to fill up your settings:
Host: can be any subdomain you want. In our example, track.mobileoffer.com, so I wrote “track"here.

Points to: abcde.trackvoluum.com (Replace abcde with your own code)

TTL: 1/2 hour . Once set, it should look like this. Please check Screen

5) Click “Finish” and then there will be a “save settings” button in your domain dashboard. Make sure you click that one or the changes won’t be saved.
Now you need to link your domain to your Voluum's account, so go back to the Domain settings in Voluum and add “track.mobileoffers.com” (our example) to your main domain.

Leave “Cloaking domain” as redirectvoluum.com and click Save. Please refer Screen

That's it.You should be able to use Voluum tracker now."

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