Rotating and Tracking Macromedia Flash Advertisements

Macromedia Flash (SWF) movie format is one of the most commonly used rich media ad format on the Internet. Multimedia and animation capabilities make it an efficient way of giving the messages of the advertisers to their audience. In addition, Flash player plug-in is very commonly installed on the computers connected to the Internet.

Since Flash is an embedded object (a SWF file), its content can not be changed directly by the ad serving and rotation programs like DynAds Pro. For this reason, the destination URL of the Flash ad can not be changed directly to a tracking URL by the ad serving program. In the past, a different Flash was designed for the each website that the ad would appear on. However, Macromedia has developed a method to change the click URL of the Flash ads externally. The method is called clickTAG method (see the rich media tracking guide to learn how to create flash ads for click tracking via third party ad trackers like DynAds Pro). By using the clickTAG variable, it is possible to track the clicks of Flash ads as well as the impressions.

DynAds Pro supports Flash ads just like any other rich media or html ad format.

Before entering the ad copy into DynAds Pro database, first test the flash code on one of the pages you want it to appear by typing the codes to the page directly to ensure that the flash displaying code is correct and running trouble free.

Rotating Flash ads without click tracking

If a particular Flash movie you have does not support the clickTAG variable or you do not want to track clicks but just impressions, then enter the whole Flash displaying code into the Header HTML field of the ad in DynAds Pro database. Leave other fields always empty.

Do the following steps to rotate Flash ads without click tracking.

1. Insert the Flash playing code into an ad in the DynAds Pro administration panel.

   Example:

   The following HTML code plays the Flash in file ad_banner_example.swf from the domain http://SomeDomain/.
   <embed src="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf">

   Insert the above HTML into a DynAds Pro ad like
   Header HTML:
   <embed src="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf">
   Redirection URL: Empty
   Footer HTML: Empty

2. Place the ad into a campaign.
3. Place that campaign into a zone, if not done already.
4. Go to the Code Generator menu and generate the rotation code for the zone. Do not use IMG tag rotation when rotating Flash ads.
5. Paste the rotation code into your pages.

Rotating Flash ads with click tracking

If your flash ad employs the clickTAG variable, then you can track the clicks of the ad as well as the views. However, you can not mix Flash ads with non-Flash ads in a given zone.

Do the following steps to rotate Flash ads with click tracking.

1. Insert the Flash playing code into an ad in the DynAds Pro administration panel.

   Example-1:

   The following HTML code plays the Flash in file ad_banner_example.swf from the domain http://SomeDomain/. When clicked to the ad, it will go to http://www.Destination.com
   <EMBED src="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf?clickTAG=http://www.Destination.com">

   Note how the clickTAG query variable is used to pass the destination URL for the clicks to the Flash file.

   Insert the above HTML into a DynAds Pro ad as shown below.
   Header HTML:
   <EMBED src="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf?clickTAG=
   Redirection URL:
   http://www.Destination.com
   Footer HTML:
   ">

   During the delivery of this ad, DynAds Pro will replace the URL in the Redirection URL field with a tracking URL. When someone clicks to the Flash, DynAds Pro will record the click and re-direct the visitor to the original destination URL.

   Example-2:

   In HTML 4.0, a new tag, OBJECT, is proposed for embedded objects like Flash files. If your Flash displaying HTML code is using OBJECT tag, it should look like this:
   <OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0" ID=ad_banner_example_1 WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf?clickTAG=http://www.Destination.com"> <PARAM NAME=loop VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=menu VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=medium> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF> </OBJECT>

   Then enter this code to DynAds Pro database as:
   Header HTML:
   <OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0" ID=ad_banner_example_1 WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://SomeDomain/ad_banner_example.swf?clickTAG=
   Redirection URL:
   http://www.Destination.com
   Footer HTML:
   "> <PARAM NAME=loop VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=menu VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=medium> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF> </OBJECT>

2. Place the ad into a campaign.
3. Place that campaign into a zone, if not done already.
4. Go to the Code Generator menu and generate the rotation code for the zone. Be sure to check the Encode "Redirection URL" option on. Do not use IMG tag rotation when rotating Flash ads.
5. Paste the rotation code into your pages.