Ad tracking

How ad tracking works

Today we want to give you a brief introduction on how ad tracking with RapidStream works.

Basically there are three ways to track ads with RapidStream:

  1. Tracking ads with VAST URLs
  2. RapidStream’s ad tracking
  3. Your own ad tracking

Tracking ads with VAST URLs

The first way to track ads is by using VAST URLs. VAST is a standard XML-based ad serving protocol that allows you to track ad impressions, ad clicks, and other ad events. You can use VAST URLs to track ads in RapidStream by simply adding the VAST URL to your ad break request.

We will aggregate the VAST tracking events and provide you with flattened VAST documents including all tracking events.

RapidStream’s ad tracking

The second way to track ads is by using RapidStream’s ad tracking. We add our own tracking calls into the VAST, so we know which ads get called. We provide the data in our analytics board to allow evidence-based decisions.

Your own ad tracking

The third way to track ads is by using your own ad tracking. You can add your individual tracking calls in the RapidStream panel. There are two types of tracking calls:

  1. Ad break prepared
  2. Quartile tracking

The ad break prepared tracking call is triggered when the ad break is prepared. This will trigger a webhook to your server including all the information you may need. It includes the ad break context data with all the data we used for the ad break and thie list of ads returned from ad servers. It also includes the adBreakId which you can use for referencing.

The quartile tracking call is triggered when the ad is played. There are six events you can track:

  • start
  • firstQuartile
  • midpoint
  • thirdQuartile
  • complete
  • impression

You can use these events to track the ad progress and to trigger your own tracking calls. You can configure individual tracking URLs for each event in the RapidStream panel. All those URLs have four placeholders you can use to pass data to your server:

  • adBreakId
  • adId
  • adServerId
  • adServerName

That’s it for today. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. We are happy to help you with your ad tracking.