Click through url best practices & QA

Click through url best practices & QA

INTERNAL XM TEAM USAGE



The url an ad clicks to is an integral part of the campaign trafficking process.  In order to optimize QA and implementation, the following are some best practices that should be adhered to when sending click through urls for your campaigns: 


  • Url must not be a redirect.   

  • When a redirect url is submitted, the url appends for analytics tracking do not work.  Similarly, MTA tracking does not adhere. Also, redirects are a security risk.  See here for how to diagnose a redirect.


  • Url must be live for testing and QA. 

  • When a url is not live, AdOps cannot test to ensure the ad tags click through properly, that url appends stick, and that MTA tracking is applied.  In addition, when a url is not live, Google cannot crawl the url, causing DSP rejections. 


  • Urls should not have url appends applied. 

  • UTM and CID parameters are generated within the ad server, a Brand-specific trafficking worksheet or a specific url generator document by the AdOps team.  Should you require a specific parameter included in the appends, please contact the AdOps Manager/Group Director to discuss. 

  • Certain Brands may send you urls with appends already applied.  If they do, doublecheck with the Brand that the url is correct as they have provided it. 


  • Urls containing macros should be checked for case styling. 

  • Any urls utilizing Google macros must have the macros in lowercase format.  Examples: %ebuy! %epid! %ecid! %eaid! %esid! 


  • Urls must be SSL compliant (https://) 

  • When the url is not SSL compliant, DSPs reject the ads associated with that url. 


  • Url must not contain mixed content.  

  • The webpage content a url links to should be entirely SSL compliant or all non-compliant - not a mixture of the two.  Mixed content pages result in DSP rejection. 


  • Url should end in a ? If your url needs appends*. 

  • A question mark notes the start of a query string in the url.  If there is no ? Present in the url, the url must end with a ?  

  • *If there is already a question mark within the url and you need AdOps to add appends, your url should not end in a ?.  There should only be one question mark in a url string. 

 

  

When QAing the url, if you can answer: YES to the any of the first 6 points, the url is bad. If you see no question mark or two question marks on the url, the url is bad.

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