Maintaining Vendor Integrations
In order for Rockerbox to report on channel performance, integrations with each ad platform must be maintained. In general this involves
- Spend: Rockerbox must pull or receive spend from each ad platform
- Click Tracking (digital channels): channel managers must apply Rockerbox-specific tracking parameters to paid digital channel URLs
- View Tracking (digital channels): channel managers must apply Rockerbox-specific impression pixels to specific channels where available
- Offline Tracking (offline channels): vendors or customers must provide Rockerbox with reporting that meets fixed integration requirements
- Reporting Tier Structure: a 5-tiered hierarchy is applied to all of your marketing channels. This may involve naming conventions that must be maintained in your placements names.
Spend
Rockerbox collects spend from individual ad platforms via pre-built integrations with each platform.
Spend via API: in many cases, Rockerbox pulls spend directly from each ad platform via an API. Re-authentication of your ad account in Rockerbox may be required if the authentication lapses, in which case you will receive an alert (in the UI and via email) to reconnect your ad account.
Spend via Batch File: spend for other ad platforms may be collected via batch file sent daily, weekly, or ad hoc from the ad platform. See the partner-specific page for more details on the cadence in which spend is provided.
Click Tracking
In order to track click-based conversions, Rockerbox <> Ad Platform specific tracking parameters must be appended to URLs for all ads. To this, it's critical that tracking continues to be applied to all ads by the Channel Manager.
Automatically Applied Tracking Parameters: for some platforms, Rockerbox is able to automatically apply URL parameters to most ads. Any placements that cannot have tracking applied automatically will be flagged in the Advertising Platforms page and will need to have tracking applied manually.
Manually Applied Tracking Parameters: for other platforms, tracking parameters need to be manually applied to all ads, including as you launch new ads. Instructions for applying parameters can be found in the Advertising Platforms page.
Click Tracking QA: any ads with missing tracking will be flagged in the Advertising Platforms page. Action is required to resolve this. Follow the steps below:
- a sample UTM string
- the tier structure you'd like applied
View Tracking
For certain types of marketing channels or ad platforms, Rockerbox is able to track view-based touchpoints.
This can be done via impression pixels, log files provided by the vendor, or via synthetically modeled touchpoints. Reference vendor-specific documentation to see how views are tracked.
If impression pixels are required for a given ad platform, pixels need to be applied to all ads and QA'd according to the instructions below.
Offline or In-App Channel Tracking
For some channel types including offline and ads that drive to a mobile app, the above tracking may not apply. In most cases, spend and conversion data is delivered via scheduled export from the ad platform to Rockerbox.
For any questions on the status of tracking for these channels, reach out to support@rockerbox.com.
Reporting Tier Structure
Rockerbox reports on your marketing activity in a 5-tiered hierarchical structure.
In most cases, the values reported on in Rockerbox come directly from the names you set within your ad platforms.
In some cases, logic is applied to categorize similar ad types (ex prospecting campaigns). This requires the channel manager to maintain naming conventions within each ad platform's campaign or ad group names. With this, an if/then logic is created (if the campaign name includes "pro_" then categorize as prospecting. This is a customization that is only applied during onboarding to specific channels.