How to Create Campaigns with Conversion Tracking

Content

• What This Guide Covers

• Quick overview: the 4-step process
• Step 1: Create conversions
  • Choosing the right conversion type
  • Important questions to ask your advertiser
  • How to create a conversion
  • Generating integration instructions
• Step 2: Create creatives
  • How to create a creative
  • Important creative settings
  • Critical checks before saving
• Step 3: Create a campaign
  • Before creating your campaign
  • Key campaign settings
• Step 4: Add creatives to your campaign

• Final Checklist Before Launching

• Monitoring Your Campaign

• Troubleshooting: When Conversions Aren't Tracking

• Common GTM Setup Mistakes

• How to Help Advertisers Troubleshoot

• Summary Workflow

• When to Escalate

• Quick Reference: Conversion Types

What This Guide Covers

This guide walks you through setting up advertising campaigns with conversion tracking in the DSP. You'll learn how to create conversions, creatives, and campaigns, and how to avoid common setup issues.

Quick Overview: The 4-Step Process

1. Create Conversions for tracking
2. Create Creatives and link them to conversions
3. Create a Campaign with targeting and budget settings
4. Add Creatives to the campaign

Step 1: Create Conversions

Where: Conversions screen in the Advertisers module

Conversions track important actions (like purchases, sign-ups, or downloads) that happen after someone clicks your ad. You can create conversions once per advertiser, then use them across multiple creatives and campaigns.

Choosing the Right Conversion Type

There are two types of conversions:

For most cases for web, you'll use Script-based conversions since your advertisers typically add the code directly to their sites.

Important Questions to Ask Your Advertiser

Before creating a web script-based conversion, confirm:

✅ Can they add a script to their website? (They need access to edit the site code or have a developer who can)

✅ Do they use Google Tag Manager (GTM)? Most advertisers do, and our integration instructions are designed for GTM

✅ What event should trigger the conversion? (e.g., "Purchase complete" page load, "Submit" button click, form submission)

⚠️ Common Issue: If the advertiser doesn't know what event to track or doesn't have GTM access, you may run into implementation problems later. It's worth clarifying this upfront!

How to Create a Conversion

1. Go to the Conversions screen in the Advertisers module
2. Click Create New Conversion
3. Select conversion type (Web or App)
4. Set up conversion goals (what you're tracking)
5. Save the conversion

📘 [Link to detailed conversion creation guide]

Generating Integration Instructions

After creating the conversion:

1. Click the "Generate Integration" icon (below the "Goals" section)
2. This creates step-by-step instructions for the advertiser
3. The instructions for a web script based conversion are formatted for Google Tag Manager by default

What to send the advertiser:

• The integration instructions
• Clear explanation of what event should trigger the conversion
• Timeline for when they need to implement it (ideally before campaign launch)

💡 Pro Tip: Schedule a quick call to walk through the GTM setup with the advertiser if they're not technical. This prevents delays and troubleshooting later.

Step 2: Create Creatives

Where: Creatives section in the Advertisers module

Creatives are your actual ads (banners, videos, audio). You create them once and can use them in multiple campaigns.

How to Create a Creative

1. Go to the Creatives screen
2. Click Create New Creative
3. Fill in creative details (size, format, content)
4. In the "Tracking and Conversions" section, select the conversion you created in step 1

📘 [Link to detailed creative creation guide]

Important Creative Settings

Target URL:

• When you select a conversion, the Target URL automatically fills with the conversion's target URL
• This is usually what you want
• To use a different URL: Toggle off "Use Conversion Tracking URL" and enter your custom URL manually

⚠️ Critical Checks Before Saving:

✅ Target URL is filled in (either from conversion or entered manually)

✅ If using HTML creative: Confirm the script includes the CLICK_URL macro, without it, the redirect won't work and conversions won't track

❌ Common Mistake: Forgetting to add a target URL or leaving it blank. The creative redirect won't work properly without it.

Step 3: Create a Campaign

Where: Campaigns section

Campaigns control how and where your ads appear, targeting, budget, pacing, and more.

Before Creating Your Campaign

Make sure you know:

• Start and end dates
• Total budget
• Daily/hourly budget (if needed)
• Targeting requirements (geo, device, etc.)
• Frequency capping needs

📘 [Link to detailed campaign creation guide]

Key Campaign Settings

Budget & Pacing:

• Set your daily and total budgets
• Choose a pacing strategy - hourly and daily budgets, day parting
• ⚠️ Add QPS cap in the campaign's Capping tab if you have low hourly/daily budgets to prevent overspending

Targeting & Filters:

• Add geographic, device, and audience targeting
  
  

Bid Price:

• Set campaign-level bid price (recommended)
• Creative-level bid prices will override campaign prices if set

💡 Recommendation: Manage bid prices at the campaign level. This lets you reuse the same creative across campaigns with different pricing.

Step 4: Add Creatives to Your Campaign

Where: Creatives tab within your campaign

Once your campaign settings are complete:

1. Go to the Creatives tab in your campaign (can also be done from the general Creatives screen)
2. Click Add Creatives
3. Select the creatives you want to include
4. Save

You can add or remove creatives anytime. Removing a creative from a campaign doesn't delete it from the advertiser, it just removes it from that specific campaign.

Final Checklist Before Launching

Before your campaign goes live, verify:

✅ Conversion is created and integration instructions sent to advertiser

✅ Advertiser has confirmed they've implemented the tracking script

✅ Creatives have target URLs and are linked to the conversion

✅ HTML creatives include the CLICK_URL macro

✅ Campaign has correct dates, budget, and targeting

✅ QPS cap is set (if needed for low budgets)

✅ Creatives are added to the campaign

Monitoring Your Campaign

Where: Analytics module

Once your campaign is running, check the Analytics module. You should see:

• Impressions (ads shown)
• Clicks (users clicking ads)
• Conversion events (tracked actions)

⚠️ If you see impressions and clicks but NO conversions, see the troubleshooting section below.

Troubleshooting: When Conversions Aren't Tracking

Quick Diagnostic Checklist

If your campaign is running but conversions aren't showing up:

1. Check DSP Setup:

• ✅ Is the creative linked to the correct conversion and to an active campaign?
• ✅ Does the creative have a target URL?
• ✅ Is the CLICK_URL macro present (for HTML creatives)?

2. Check Advertiser Implementation:

• ✅ Did the advertiser actually implement the script?
• ✅ Is the script on the correct page (conversion page, not landing page)?
• ✅ Is the script placed in the correct location on the page?

3. Check Google Tag Manager (Most Common Issues):

Common GTM Setup Mistakes

❌ Tag fires on all pages instead of conversion page

• Solution: Update trigger to fire only on specific page URL or event

❌ Tag placed but not published

• Solution: Remind advertiser to submit and publish changes in GTM

❌ Wrong event trigger selected

• Solution: Clarify what event (button click, page load, form submit) should trigger conversion

❌ Script syntax errors

• Solution: Verify the script was copied completely without modifications

How to Help Advertisers Troubleshoot

Ask these questions:

1. "Can you confirm the script is on your website's conversion/thank-you page?"
2. "Are you using Google Tag Manager? If yes, has the tag been published?"
3. "Can you check GTM Preview mode to see if our tag fires when you complete a test conversion?"
4. "What specific event should trigger the conversion? (page load, button click, etc.)"
5. "Do you have GTM admin access, or do you need to involve a developer?"

💡 Pro Tip: Have the advertiser do a test conversion while you watch the Analytics module together. This helps identify where the tracking breaks down.

Summary Workflow

1. Create Advertiser (one time)
   ↓
2. Create Conversion + Send integration instructions
   ↓
3. Wait for advertiser to implement (confirm completion)
   ↓
4. Create Creative + Link to conversion
   ↓
5. Create Campaign + Set targeting/budget
   ↓
6. Add Creatives to Campaign
   ↓
7. Launch + Monitor in Analytics

When to Escalate

Contact technical support if:

• Conversion tracking appears correctly set up on both sides but still not working
• Advertiser reports complex GTM configuration issues beyond basic troubleshooting
• Pixel-based conversions aren't tracking (requires server-side verification)
• HTML creative redirect issues persist after verifying CLICK_URL macro

Quick Reference: Conversion Types

Script-Based (Most Common):

• ✅ Use when advertiser can add code to their site
• ✅ usually works with Google Tag Manager
• ✅ Tracks events in real-time
• ⚠️ Requires advertiser implementation

Pixel-Based:

• ✅ Use when advertiser has a tracking provider
• ✅ Available for web and app
• ✅ Can be client-side or server-side
• ⚠️ Requires coordination with tracking provider