Secrets of online marketing: cookie syncing, the real world

This is a continuation of my previous blog post on cookie syncing, this time a real world example of cookie syncing as promised.

The actors:

Bluekai is a real world data collector. Very basically stated, MediaMath collects "users" who are planning to travel soon.

Mediamath is a (real time) trading platform, which allows advertisers to bid and buy advertisement space (banners) in real time.

Kayak is a travel site, where you can for example search for a flight from Amsterdam to London.

Now Bluekai and Mediamath have partnered to enable advertisers to target people about to travel. So, for example, if I were an advertiser for car rentals in Berlin, then I could use the services of MediaMath to show a banner to anybody that was interested in flying to Berlinin the coming two weeks.

And of course, Kayak.com has partnered with Bluekai to allow Bluekai to collect users who are about to travel and sell them off to advertisers.

And so the scene is set.

Under the hood:

Let's take a look at Kayak.com and what happens when you search for a flight from Londong to Berlin in the coming week. The goings on are a bit murky and mixed up but basically, a cookie sync is occuring. By the way, you can check all of what I list below for yourself using only your browser (for example Firefox with the firebug extension).

First of all when viewing the page with results for flights to Berlin, underwater the following pixel is making a call (unbeknownst to you):

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?mt_id=10355&v1=28501&v2=9109&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

Mathtag.com belongs to MediaMath and this pixel is actually a pixel "container" in that this one call triggers a whole lot of otheer pixels to be dynamically loaded onto the page:

http://ad.yieldmanager.com/pixel?id=729659&id=729660&
id=729661&id=268681&id=86164&t=&id=791551&id=791552&
id=791555&id=791556&id=791557&id=791558&id=791559&
id=1072039&id=1072040&t=2

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=101067&mt_adid=100224&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

http://designbloxlive.com/retargetTracking2.php?cid=125_378&passcode=LON::BER

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=101261&mt_adid=100224&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

http://action.mathtag.com/mm//KAYA//mrt?nm=FliSerR&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON

http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/ActivityServer.bs?cn=as&ActivityID=90459&Value=&OrderID=&ProductID=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&ProductInfo=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&ns=1

http://px.admonkey.dapper.net/PixelMonkey?adId=kayakhotels&format=image&useReferrer=1&origin_city=London,%20United%20Kingdom&origin_state=,United%20Kingdom&dest_city=Berlin,%20Germany&dest_state=,Germany

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/1675

Ok, so one pixel triggers an avalanche of other pixels! But for the course of this blog, we'll focus on only the last pixel namely:

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/1675

This is a cookie sync call! Here we have MediaMath passing along the id it has stored in a cookie on your pc (1675) along to Bluekai so that Bluekai can now store the MediaMath id alongs with it's own id. This allows BlueKai to sell all of it's profile data (you are planning to fly to Berlin) to any advertiser (in this case via MediaMath).

Note that BlueKai has it's own pixel call (multiple actually) to place cookies on your browser with Bluekai ids. This allows BlueKai to sell your profile data to other parties besides only MediaMath of course. An example of such a pixel call is:

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/83?ret=html&phint=Product%3Dflight&phint=Class%3De&phint=DepartDate%3DMon%20Mar%2021%2000%3A00%3A00%20EDT%202011&phint=DepartureCity%3DLHR&phint=Destination%3DBER&phint=__bk_t%3DKAYAK%20Search%20Results&limit=10&r=301914

It should also be noted that although these parties are building up a profile about "you", they are not storing any information of direct personal information. Basically they are lumping you together into a category (with an id) that indicates you are interested in flying to Berlin. So in a sense it is "anonymous" although the cookie with the id is still on your pc (not so anonymous).

Secrets of online marketing: ad click

If you click refresh a couple of times on http://auto.nl.msn.com/ you are bound to see the Ditzo car insurance ad. This blog entry attempts to detail what happens when you click on this advertisement banner.

The short answer is, of course, you land on the Ditzo site, on the car insurance request page. The long answer is a bit more detailled because under the hood alot is going on, and all of it in the blink of an eye. This blog entry will try to give some insight into all of the stuff that is happening, and can be seen as an continuation of a previous blog entry on ad impressions.

First off, the Ditzo ad banner is made in flash and is not a static image. In essence, a flash banner is just like a mini software program and thus when you click on the banner "anything" could happen. However, there are online marketing industry standards for flash banners so the "anything" is somewhat limited. Why these standards? Well the reason is that multiple parties and software solutions need to work together in order to show the flash banner, and the only way to achieve this is to standardize (see previous entry on ad impressions). This allows Ditzo to make just one banner and still have it display on any number of different sites, each site potentially using diffferent software to display banners with.

If you look at the source code of the banner ad page in your browser you should be able to find the flash banner which looks like:


<embed wmode="transparent" flashvars="id_part=3525&amp;sitedom=bluemango.solution.weborama.fr&amp;lien=47031&amp;site=297163&amp;id_unique=1297970156_1297970157873&amp;target=_blank&amp;crea=4332&amp;
clicktag=http%3A//clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1/01/%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A//bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi%3FID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&amp;clicktag1=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag1%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&amp;clicktag2=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag2%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&amp;clicktag3=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag3%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&amp;clicktag4=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag4%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&amp;clicktag5=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag5%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif" src="http://elstatic.weborama.fr/adperf/297163/3132/201101/19151118_300-250resdi110118form9v101.swf" swliveconnect="TRUE" width="300" height="250" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always">


Ok, so this is alot of code, but most of it is the standard way to show flash in a web browser. The interesting part for our purposes is the clicktag parameter (I used url decode here to show it in more readable form):


clicktag=http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/?href=http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi?ID=297163&amp;A=1&amp;L=47031&amp;C=3132&amp;P=3525&amp;CREA=4332&amp;T=E&amp;URL=https://www.ditzo.nl/nl/Auto/Premie/BrowseCar.htm?utm_source=3525&amp;utm_campaign=3525&amp;utm_medium=BAC&amp;utm_content=_backupgif


All flash banners have a clicktag parameter. It is a standardized parameter that determines the site url to which your browser will be redirected if you click on the banner. Why is this "click url" set via a parameter and not directly in the flash itself? Well the reason is that other parties can tweak the click url to suit their own purposes. To see why this is important let's break down the large clicktag above.

When you click the banner you initially go to the url (first part of the cliktag):


http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/


This an url of Atlas, the Microsoft ad server which msn.com uses. However, you will never see this page. Why? Because this url will simply reply with a redirect (302) telling your browser to go to the following url instead:


http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi


Note that this is the href parameter (?href=) of the clicktag above. Now this url belongs to Weborama, the add server that Ditzo uses for it's banners. But again, you will never see this page because your browser is immediately redirected (302) to the following url:


https://www.ditzo.nl/nl/Auto/Premie/BrowseCar.htm


And this is the Ditzo page, finally!

Note that this is the URL parameter contained in the href parameter of the original clicktag.

So basically an url within a url within a url. This raises two questions: 1) why? and 2) how do the different parties achieve this redirecting?

Well to answer the second question first: this is the reason that the clicktag is standardized for flash banners. All the parties know that the clicktag contains the url for when the banner is clicked and this allows them to add their own url to the front of the clicktag, thus placing themselves in the click path.

So that leaves question 1) Why? Doesn't this all seem a tad complex just to show a banner? Well it's all about the ad servers and how they make money. Alot of advertisement is based on cpc or cost per click, which means that Ditzo pays msn.com not for displaying the ad banner, but only for each time the banner is clicked. This means that msn.com, or actually Atlas, needs to keep track of how many times the ad is clicked and it does this by making sure that when you click, you pay their site a quick, underwater visit.

So that explains the first wrapper url, now for the second one. Well msn.com may claim that the ad has been clicked, but are they saying the truth? Besides, Ditzo is paying Weborama to serve the ads, not Atlas (msn.com). So in order for Weborama to also track the click, you pay them a quick, underwater visit as well. Now both ad servers have measured the click, and thus Ditzo can pay Weborama, and Weborama can pay Atlas, and Atlas can pay msn.com, and everybody is happy.

But wait, there is more

But that's not all that's going on. Each ad server is also placing a cookie on your pc (browser). This cookie stores the fact that you clicked the ad. Why is this important? Well, it's all about retargeting and profiling. Storing the fact that you clicked the Ditzo ad on the msn.com site can be used by the ad servers to show you other car ads or insurances next time you visit msn.com, or a totally different site for which they happen to serve ads. The cookie can thus be used to (re)target the ads you are being shown, thus increasing the likelihood that you might click on them and thus make money for everybody involved.