Eskimi Pixels

Eskimi tracking and conversion pixels: setup, testing and troubleshooting.

Eskimi Audience / Tracking Pixel

Eskimi Audience / Tracking Pixel

Eskimi Tracking Pixel: Introduction & Implementation

Integrating tracking pixels into your digital marketing campaigns is crucial for effective measurement and optimization of your campaigns. If you're using Eskimi DSP for your advertising needs, this manual article will guide you through the introduction and implementation process of Eskimi DSP tracking pixels.

Eskimi is a separate platform, and we have our own user base and tracking system. Eskimi combines a larger reach of customers and needs to track them separately. The audience code allows you to create audiences from your current site users, analyze the browsing pages of your current users, and then retarget them. Also, when you put audience code in your site, our programmatic platform learns more about your users, conversions, and can direct better quality users from the programmatic campaigns that you run. Also, the code does not impact the load times or performance of the page; it is quite light.

If you prefer to implement Eskimi DSP Pixels through Google Tag Manager (GTM), you can follow the instructions outlined in the provided article for a step-by-step guide.

It is important to note that when implementing pixels, testing should be conducted in collaboration with the Eskimi support team. This will ensure accurate data collection and validate whether the pixel is properly integrated with your website.

Eskimi DSP provides the following tracking pixels for: 

Audience and Conversion pixels

The most commonly used tracking pixels are audience and conversion pixels, as they allow implementing new advertising strategies and optimization possibilities. 

In order to track retargeting (site first party) audience, engaged sessions, and conversions, it is necessary to implement Eskimi tracking pixels on the landing page.

Implemented pixels allow you not only to see the metrics but also to optimize them, which is significantly important. With implemented pixels, you can see (just a few examples):

Audience and conversion pixels give you multiple opportunities to optimize for better performance therefore, it is strongly recommended to implement them for multiple campaigns' objectives. 

Eskimi DSP Tracking Pixels Implementation

Each account on the Eskimi DSP platform is equipped with a unique and highly customizable tracking pixel codes.

To access the pixel code, go to your account and locate the three-dot icon in the top right corner of the page. Click on it and select the "Tracking Pixels" option from the drop-down menu. In the "Tracking Pixels" section, the first code you see corresponds to the audience code, which is utilized for Site First Party audience collection. 

For a visual reference, please consult the accompanying image below.

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To properly implement this Audience pixel, it must be initialized on every page of your website. You can either place it between the <body> </body> tags or inside the <head> </head> tags, depending on the consistent structure of your site.

As previously mentioned, implementing the Audience pixel will enable you to:

Conversion Pixel

To access the Conversion pixel code, select the Conversion option, and the code for conversion tracking will be displayed below.

The copied Conversion pixel code should be placed on the specific page where tracking is required. This can be the Success Page, Thank You page, or any other page as per your requirement.

For a visual reference, please consult the accompanying image below.

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The Conversion pixel can be customized by applying specific campaign IDs or utilizing custom conversions.

Including a campaign ID in the code allows you to track conversions that are initiated through a particular campaign. On the other hand, custom conversions enable tracking of preferred actions such as registrations, adding items to a shopping cart, purchases, and more. While custom conversions provide reporting and analysis capabilities for tracking the number of custom conversions, it is important to note that campaign performance optimization based on custom conversions is not possible.

Important note - please avoid initializing conversion code on every page, as doing so will lead to every page visit being counted as a successful conversion.

Post View and Post Click Conversion Window Customisability

Conversion tracking can be customised to align with preferred conversion windows for both post-view and post-click conversions. This allows you to set specific time frames within which conversions are attributed to interactions, whether they are viewed or clicked. By customising the conversion window, you can fine-tune your tracking to best suit your desired attribution model and accurately measure the impact of your campaigns.

Eskimi Conversion Pixel

Eskimi Conversion Pixel

Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking shows what happens after a user clicks your Eskimi ad: whether they bought something, signed up, filled in a form or installed your app. By tracking conversions you can see which campaigns, creatives, sites and apps bring results, and optimise towards them.

Ways to Track Conversions

Eskimi DSP offers three ways to track conversions, depending on where the conversion happens:

Where the conversion happensMethodHow it works
WebsiteEskimi conversion pixelA small piece of code placed on the page or action you want to count, e.g. the purchase confirmation page or a sign-up button. When a user who clicked your ad completes the action, the pixel fires and the conversion is recorded.
Your own server, CRM or app backendS2S (server-to-server) postbackEskimi adds a unique click ID to the landing page URL. Your system stores it and sends it back to Eskimi when the conversion happens.
Mobile app (installs and in-app events)Mobile measurement partner (e.g. AppsFlyer, Adjust)The partner attributes installs and in-app events to Eskimi clicks and sends them to Eskimi DSP.

Main and Custom Conversions

You can track one main conversion and several custom conversions, for example "purchase" as the main conversion and "add to cart" or "newsletter sign-up" as custom ones. All of them appear in reports. Auto-optimisation (CPA) works on the main conversion only.

CPA auto-optimisation needs the Eskimi conversion pixel (or an S2S postback) to be in place before the campaign starts, so the system has conversion data to learn from.

Where to Find the Setup Guides

Summary

Track website conversions with the Eskimi conversion pixel, conversions in your own systems with an S2S postback, and app installs and in-app events through a mobile measurement partner. Conversions then show in Eskimi DSP reports by campaign, creative, site and app.

Set up tracking before launch, and choose the main conversion carefully: it is the one CPA auto-optimisation works on.

Eskimi Conversion Pixel

Simplified Conversion Pixel Implementation

This article is dedicated to users and developers who have to implement the tracking pixel to the website.

Disclaimer: all example codes are used from a testing account.

  1. Firstly obtain the base pixel code.

    Login to your account, and access the " Tracking Pixels " section. 

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  2. Customize your tracking code. For this example, we want to track conversions of a specific campaign. 

    • Tick the "Campaign" checkbox, and select the appropriate campaign. 
    • Tick the "Conversion" checkbox.

    Now your base pixel code should look like this (see image below):

    Screen Shot 2023-01-04 at 17.21.47.png

  3. When you have generated the code, forward this to the website developers. 

    In this situation, since we are tracking conversions, the code has to be implemented between the <body> </body> tags of the success page, like in the example below. 

    Screen Shot 2018-08-09 at 13.01.13.png

  4. Test your code and see if everything works and if the pixel code is being called. 

    To test the code, open up the Developer Tools of your browser and using the "Network Traffic" tools check if the pixel code is being launched. 

Eskimi Conversion Pixel

Eskimi Conversion Pixel Implementation on Action Button

On some occasions, you will need to implement a conversion registration when the user clicks a button. This can be done in a few easy steps.

Step 1

Initialize the base pixel.

Copy the base pixel from the DSP: choose Tracking and the DSP gives you the base pixel code. It tracks visits and sessions and collects retargeting audiences. It looks like this:

Tracking pixel in the DSP, showing the base pixel code

The id in esk('init', ...) is unique for each advertiser account, so it is blurred in the screenshots and yours will differ.

Paste your base pixel code between your websites success page <body> </body> tags. And if the code is initialised in the <head> </head> tags then everything is set up.

Step 2

For conversion tracking you need both pixels: the base pixel on every page of your website, and the conversion pixel where the conversion happens. In the DSP, tick Conversion under Tracking. The page then shows the base pixel code to paste on every page, and the conversion code to paste where the conversion is triggered:

Conversion pixel in the DSP, showing the base pixel code and the conversion code

The conversion pixel can be implemented on different actions on your website. These are examples of the tracking code: on a page the visitor lands on, such as a thank-you page (Example 1), on a link (Example 2) and on a button (Example 3).

Three examples of the conversion tracking code: on a thank-you page, on a link and on a button

Eskimi Pixel implementation via Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Eskimi Pixel implementation via Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Eskimi Pixel Implementation via GTM


Integrating tracking pixels into your digital marketing campaigns is crucial for effective measurement and optimization. If you're using Eskimi DSP for your advertising needs, this manual article will guide you through the process of implementing the Eskimi DSP tracking pixels seamlessly using Google Tag Manager (GTM).

Follow the step-by-step instructions below to efficiently set up the Eskimi DSP tracking pixels through GTM and ensure accurate tracking and measurement of your advertising efforts.

It is important to note that when implementing pixels, testing should be conducted in collaboration with the Eskimi support team. This will ensure accurate data collection, and validate whether the pixel is properly integrated with your website.

Audience pixel implementation 

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Conversion pixel implementation

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Submit the changes

Once you have set up the necessary pixels and triggers, the last and most important step is to submit the changes. Without submitting them, the changes will not be applied to the actual environment of the site. To do this, go to the overview page and look for the "submit" button in the top right corner. Click on the "submit" button and follow the process until all the recent changes are published on your website. This submission ensures that the modifications you have made will take effect and be visible in the live environment of your site.

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Tag Sequencing / Prioritisation

You can control tag firing prioritisation in the Advanced Settings of a tag. *This configuration is implemented on the page where the conversion pixel is deployed, ensuring that the "Tracking pixel" fires first before the "Conversion pixel" because the conversion pixel relies on the "esk" function described in the tracking pixel.*

In our case, we need to set the Eskimi tracking pixel priority to 2 and the conversion pixel priority to 1.

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Another option if firing priority is used by other tags

If other tags, such as analytics tags, are also used in the webpage setup, or if tag priority is utilised in other scenarios, "Tag sequencing" can be an alternative to "Tag firing prioritisation." This approach ensures that tags fire in a specific sequence, which can prevent conflicts when numerous tags are present on the same page or "Tag firing prioritisation" is used with other tags.

In our scenario, we can specify which tag should fire before or after a particular trigger. It's crucial to ensure that the "Tracking pixel" fires before the "Conversion pixel" or in other words - "Conversion pixel" fires after the "Tracking pixel".

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OR

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S2S Tracking (Server to Server)

S2S Tracking (Server to Server)

S2S (Server-to-Server) Tracking

Click code is an advanced tracking method. 

This is a server-side tracking method that does not require any client cookie information.

It works by passing back a eucid (end user click ID) value which is added to your landing page URL whenever the user clicks on any of your ads served through Eskimi DSP.

When the user completes a successful conversion event, the advertiser needs to transmit eucid value back to the Eskimi DSP server by calling back the DSP server's conversion tracking pixel.

Once the eucid is validated on a server, a successful conversion event will be recorded and will appear on the campaign performance optimisation tool.

Eucid pass to the advertiser

When the user clicks on one of your ads, Eskimi DSP adds a eucid (click code) parameter to the landing page URL and redirects the user to your landing page.

Examples

The example below shows how the landing page URL looks before and after user is redirected with added custom_name parameter:

before: http://advertisersite.com/campaign.php?custom_name={eucid} 

after: http://advertisersite.com/campaign.php?custom_name=MTAwMjZfNjU4NTg4NDFfbmdf

The advertiser is allowed to use a custom parameter name instead of eucid by adding {eucid} macro to the landing page URL while setting up the new campaign. This will be replaced with a unique eucid value automatically.

Importance of eucid transportation

The advertiser is required to store the passed eucid until a successful conversion or end of the session occurs.

To perform a one-time conversion notification, the advertiser needs to issue the eucid by HTTP request from the server-side (s2s).

From the examples above, we already know that eucid value is MTAwMjZfNjU4NTg4NDFfbmdf. The advertiser is required to keep this value until a successful conversion occurs.

Conversion tracking

After a successful conversion event, the advertiser will need to pass the eucid value by making a server-side HTTP request (s2s) to the URL https://dsp.eskimi.com/pixel?eucid=MTAwMjZfNjU4NTg4NDFfbmdf 

Implementation

To enable click code based conversion tracking, the advertiser needs to pass back the eucid parameter value to Eskimi DSP conversion pixel by requesting it by s2s (server to server) method.

Our Postback URL for s2s tracking: https://dsp.eskimi.com/pixel?eucid={click_id}

This Postback URL has to be implemented on your server side.
{click_id} needs to be replaced with your click ID macro, so when conversion happens it should send the value for click id which delivered conversion.

This tracker can be used by advertisers which do not support redirect in postback request. This is unusual case because most of systems support redirect.

Our Postback URL for s2s tracking: https://dsp.eskimi.com/pixel?eucid={click_id}
{click_id} needs to be replaced with your click ID macro, so when conversion happens it should send the value for click id which delivered conversion.

Available Eskimi parameters/macros for Postback URL(Which we can show to the customer if asked):

image (2).png

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Eskimi Tracking & Conversion Pixels

How to check for Audience Tracking and/or Conversion pixels on the page

Before proceeding, it's crucial to understand the client's setup regarding Eskimi pixel implementation:

Knowing these details, we can begin checking whether Eskimi pixels are firing on specific pages:

OR

If the Audience Tracking pixel is present, we should observe two events in the "Network" tab both having Status Code: 200:

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If the Conversion pixel along with the Audience Tracking pixel are present, we should also observe two events in the "Network" tab, both having Status Code: 200:

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If both pixels are present in the Network and Elements tabs, then it should work as intended. If they are present and events are not counted on the DSP side, you can check a few technical aspects:

  1. Unique Tracking Pixel ID: Clients often have multiple accounts in Eskimi DSP, which may result in the incorrect ID being utilised.

  2. Status Codes: If the status code is not 200, it indicates potential blocking of these pixels due to the webpage configuration.

      • There is a possibility that the client's webpage setup is blocking third-party cookies, which can affect the functionality of our tracking and attribution systems. In this case clients may need to adjust their website configurations to allow Eskimi third-party cookies if they are being blocked intentionally.

***Important***
When verifying pixel implementation or conducting a test campaign, please ensure that third-party cookies are enabled on your browser. Our targeting and attribution rely on the functionality of third-party cookies, so it's essential to have them enabled.

Addressing Pixel Setup Issues: Steps and Recommendations

Upon discovering that either the audience or conversion pixel is missing, through either the Eskimi Chrome extension or manual verification, consider the following steps before escalating the matter to technical support:

  1. Inquire about Pixel implementation details with the Client on more time: Clarify how the Eskimi pixel is integrated across their web properties. Questions should cover:

    • The scope of Audience Tracking Pixel implementation (single page or across multiple pages).
    • The intended behaviour and trigger mechanisms for the Conversion Pixel.
        • Is the Conversion Pixel implemented on the landing page, registration form, thank you page, or elsewhere? If the client is using Google Tag Manager (GTM), please check with the client that the triggers for the Conversion Pixel have been correctly implemented.
    • The presence of the Audience Tracking Pixel on pages designated for conversion events.

  2. For Clients utilising Google Tag Manager (GTM):

    • Verify Pixel Type: Confirm whether the client has opted for the Custom HTML version of the Audience Pixel or the Template version. We currently recommend the Custom HTML version for its flexibility and compatibility. For guidance, refer to the Eskimi Pixel Implementation Manual here.
    • Check Tag Configuration: If the pixels are correctly added but issues persist, adjustments may be needed within GTM's Tag Sequencing or Prioritisation settings. Detailed instructions can be found in the manual under the "Tag Sequencing / Prioritisation" section here.

Safari and Firefox block third-party cookies by default, so conversions from those browsers may not be attributed through the pixel. Where accuracy matters, use S2S (server-to-server) tracking.

Contacting Eskimi Technical Support

If you require technical assistance, please submit a ticket through Zendesk with the following relevant information:

Troubleshooting

How to Check Eskimi Pixel Implementation in Chrome

You can find the extension in the attached files to that article (top left corner)

CHECK THIS VIDEO WHICH DESCRIBES THE WHOLE PROCESS OF EXTENSIONS IMPLEMENTATION AND USAGE

Instructions:

  1. Go to this URL: chrome://extensions/ and turn on Developer Mode (top right corner button)
  2. Unpack the ZIP, and in the Extensions Page, click on the “Load Unpacked” and select the folder where the extension zip was unpacked.
  3. Once that is done, the extension will be added to the browser.
  4. Open Chrome Dev tools ( Inspect Section ), and look for the “EskimiSE-GA” tab
  5. And browse! The panel will automatically detect pixel events.

*CLEAR LOG* Button clears the log, so the list wouldn’t clutter. Alternatively, you can close and reopen the “Inspect” panel

What does this browser extension do ?

Why & When to use?

Tips & Notes: