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DSP Pixels

“We often plough so much so much energy into the big picture, we forget the pixels.” -Silvia Cartwright

We are here to make sure that you don’t!

Owning a long history on the Internet and going by many names, a tracking pixel, also known as a web beacon or page tag, is an embedded object commonly found on a web page.

Pixels unobtrusively allow Publishers and Advertisers to record the relevant web activity of their customers on the internet. This information in turn facilitates campaign performance measurement, conversion event tracking, and audience insights in the Zeta DSP. Here’s all you need to know about DSP Pixels:

What are Pixels?

A Pixel (aka clear GIF, web beacon, Javascript tag, one-by-one/1x1) is a small block of code on a webpage that allows websites to do things like reading and placing cookies.

The Pixels screen enables viewing, creating, and editing Pixels. When beginning a campaign, creating Pixels is the first task you should complete. Install these pixels on relevant pages of your website at least one week (preferably two) before your campaign starts, so that Zeta can start gathering information about your potential customers as soon as possible. So let's get started.

We partner with Cachepoint to monitor Pixel latency, to ensure that response is less than 200ms and that Pixels have an uptime of 99.8%.

Our model looks at a pixel, the same way it looks at if a user is in a Bluekai segment: look at everyone who converted, assign a score to the segment, and then evaluate each bid opportunity. Since pixel fire information is a direct link between the client's website and our databases. RT pixels are just better predictors for the probability of conversion. There are no special treatments given to pixels to better alert the model.

Types of Pixels

DSP Pixels track consumer activities such as landing page views, conversions, and other advertising metrics. Tracking landing page views can help enable retargeting or help avoid retargeting. Tracking advertising metrics provide data about what the audience profile looks like, which Zeta's models use to optimize campaigns. Every campaign needs to include the following Pixel Types:

Pixel Type

Description

Tracking (Default)

This pixel fires (and registers) when a visitor accesses the page. The pixel assigns the visitor an ID, if they don't already have one. Zeta uses this type of Pixel for general model information gathering and also for re-targeting. We suggest placing this pixel on your site's home and most-visited pages. The Zeta technology does not attribute Pixels of the tracking type. If this is important to you, change the Pixel to the Landing type instead.

Model Usage: Tracking pixels provide general model information, and also establish the initial connection for re-targeting. We do not tie these pixel fires to a specific bid, Therefore, we do not use tracking pixels in our calibration process. However, these pixels populate individual features in the model (I.e. Actions recency).

Conversion*

Place this type of Pixel on pages where a visitor chooses to make a purchase, for example by clicking a button or entering an order confirmation page. Zeta measures a campaign's Cost Per Action (CPA) using this Pixel.

Model Usage: This type of pixel gets placed on pages where a visitor chooses to make a purchase, for example by clicking a button or entering an order confirmation page. Zeta measures a campaign's Cost Per Action (CPA) using this pixel. Conversion Pixels track users who have actually completed a conversion action. We tie these pixel fires to a specific bid that we evaluated on the bid landscape (through an ad instance ID) and then pipe the cookie information from that user to our model for learning/calibration.

Landing*

Landing pixels track users who have hit the landing page of a website, assigning them an ID if they don't already have one. Zeta uses this type of Pixel for general model information gathering, for re-targeting and to help study the effect of impressions. Place this Pixel on the pages to which the Ads refer visitors.
Landing pixels differ from tracking pixels in that they are tied to the specific bid used on the bid landscape report.

Universal Pixel:

If you require a "universal pixel" you can generate a single landing pixel using the DSP and deploy it on Users/Clients website via Tag manager. User will need to set it to fire on all/multiple pages or implement the pixel manually on all/multiple pages.

Model Usage: This type of Pixel fires and registers when a visitor accesses the page, assigning them an ID if they don't already have one. Zeta uses this type of Pixel for general model information gathering, for re-targeting and to help study the effect of impressions. Landing pixels track users who have hit the landing page of a website. We also tie back these pixel fires to a specific bid that we evaluated on the bid landscape, but the user attributes are not piped into the model. These pixels are used to populate individual features in the model (I.e. Actions recency), but not for calibration purposes.

Redirect

Redirect pixels enable Zeta to write cookies on the third-party cookie blocked users in Safari. This is done by redirecting the clicks on the advertiser page to Zeta servers.

Survey

For use on pixels used in RTBO/SBO. Place this type of pixel on any pages where you are using surveys to gather information about visitors.

Video Completion (Legacy)

Place this type of Pixel inside the VAST Video Ad tag. The Video player fires this Pixel when the Video Ad has played in full. Reach out to your Third-Party Ad Vendor for information on how to do this with their particular type of tag.

Attribution (Legacy)

Used specifically with DoubleClick for Advertisers/DoubleClick Campaign Manager Floodlight pixels. When our pixel is piggybacked through a Floodlight tag, setting the pixel type to 'Attribution' will allow. This was used to gather Floodlight attribution data for our pixel. Effectively this pixel type was used to passback DART's attribution data through our pixel.

Data Transfer (Legacy)

Place this type of Pixel on any page where visitors will enter textual information.

Post Conversion (Legacy)

Place this type of Pixel on the page the site displays after a conversion is complete. This can be a useful site for tracking interest on purchases.


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