Brand Central tracks unique impressions using a separate cookie for each flight and campaign. If a visitor visits two publisher websites with different flights in the same campaign by the same client, BC counts ONE unique impression at the campaign level, and one EACH unique impression at the flight level. Thus, the count for campaign level will always be low compared with flight level.

Campaign level screen shot :

Flight level screen shot :

128-bit encoding is the character limit for any landing page URL in Brand Central

Publisher tag is a permanent ad tag generated by Brand Central for a publisher. The Publisher tags simultaneously runs an infinite number of campaigns of the same size for the same publisher.

How do I create a publisher ad tag?

After performing agency trafficking, click the Placements tab.

To create a new placement, click . A new window appears (See graphic below).

Enter the following information.

Publisher Name: Select the publisher to display the ad. e.g.,Yahoo.com

Publisher Zone: Select the zone torun the ad. e.g., ROS or Homepage.

Creative Type: Select the creative type that you selected when creating flights in agency level trafficking.

Language: Select the language for the creative. e.g., English, Arabic.

Name of Placement: Enter a name for the placement. e.g. Facebook - 120×600.

When you have finished, click Save and Close.

Note: Each placement is automatically assigned a unique ID by Brand Central. e.g.,  Placement ID: 00123 and Invocation Code (permanent publisher tag):

<script src="http://mybrandcentral.com/pub/?id=123"

 language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"></script>

How do I retrieve the Invocation code?On creating a placement, click   . A new window appears (See graphic below).

Click the + sign next to Publisher Section Settings.

Iframe Permanent publisher tag

Some publishers do not use JS tags because they may use Iframe tags as indicated in the sample below.

<IFRAME src="http://mybrandcentral.com/pub/iframe/?id=123&cache=[timestamp]" 

WIDTH=728 HEIGHT=90 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 

HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no 

BORDERCOLOR='#000000'></IFRAME>

Publishers who do not use JS tags are required to amend Iframe code indicated in the sample above, as per the size of the placement.

When you run the next campaign, e.g., ‘Facebook with 120×600′, perform agency tracking and then assign the flight to the ‘Facebook – 120×600′ placement, your banner will automatically go live on Facebook.

2. How can I append the iframe bundling code?
Ans. This article describes how to append the iframe bundling code. Normally most of the publishers use default JS tag for bundling which has an unique bundle id. Implementing the default tag will help us the track both impressions and clicks separately.

Brand Central is expanding its market vastly and has recently added several international portals. International portals prefer iframe tags to be implemented on their websites.

Therefore, by appending the iframe bundling code, international portals can use the iframe tag. Previously, iframe tag did not provide the bundle id, instead it gave the ad id. While an ad id runs a single banner only, bundle id runs ‘n’ number of creatives.

Sample code below :

<IFRAME src="http://mybrandcentral.com/ads/iframe/?id=41778&cache=[timestamp]"
WIDTH=728 HEIGHT=90 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0VSPACE=0
FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR='#000000'></IFRAME>

In order to append the iframe bundling code, the iframe in the code needs to be added after the bundle in the code. This can be seen here.

Once the addition is done, the complete code for the iframe would appear as below:

<IFRAME src="http://mybrandcentral.com/bundle/iframe/?id=707&cache=[timestamp]"
 WIDTH=728 HEIGHT=90 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0
 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR='#000000'></IFRAME>

Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The most famous of these is ISO 3166-1.

Brand Central Codes

AF - Afghanistan
AL - Albania
DZ - Algeria
AS - American Samoa
AD - Andorra
AO - Angola
AI - Anguilla
AQ - Antarctica
AG - Antigua and Barbuda
AR - Argentina
AM - Armenia
AW - Aruba
AU - Australia
AT - Austria
AZ - Azerbaijan
BS - Bahamas
BH - Bahrain
BD - Bangladesh
BB - Barbados
BY - Belarus
BE - Belgium
BZ - Belize
BJ - Benin
BM - Bermuda
BT - Bhutan
BO - Bolivia
BA - Bosnia - Herzegovina
BW - Botswana
BV - Bouvet Island
BR - Brazil
IO - British Virgin Island
BN - Brunei
BG - Bulgaria
BF - Burkina Faso
BI - Burundi
KH - Cambodia
CM - Cameroon United Republic
CA - Canada
CV - Cape Verde
KY - Cayman Islands
CF - Central African Republic
TD - Chad
CL - Chile
CN - China
CX - Christmas Island
CC - Cocos (Keeling) Islands
CO - Colombia
KM - Comoros
CG - Congo
CD - Congo
CK - Cook Islands
CR - Costa Rica
CI - Ivory Coast
HR - Croatia
CU - Cuba
CY - Cyprus
CZ - Czech Republic
DK - Denmark
DJ - Djibouti
DM - Dominica
DO - Dominican Republic
TP - East Timor
EC - Ecuador
EG - Egypt
SV - El Salvador
GQ - Equatorial Guinea
ER - Eritrea
EE - Estonia
ET - Ethiopia
FK - Falkland Islands
FO - Faroe Islands
FJ - Fiji
FI - Finland
FR - France
GF - French Guiana
PF - French Polynesia
TF - French Southern and Antarctic Lands
GA - Gabon
GM - Gambia
GE - Georgia
DE - Germany
GH - Ghana
GI - Gibraltar
GR - Greece
GL - Greenland
GD - Grenada
GP - Guadeloupe
GU - Guam
GT - Guatemala
GN - Guinea
GW - Guinea-bissau
GY - Guyana
HT - Haiti
HM - Heard and McDonald Islands
VA - Holy See (Vatican City State)
HN - Honduras
HK - Hong Kong
HU - Hungary
IS - Iceland
IN - India
ID - Indonesia
IR - Iran
IQ - Iraq
IE - Ireland
IL - Israel
IT - Italy
JM - Jamaica
JP - Japan
JO - Jordan
KZ - Kazakhstan
KE - Kenya
KI - Kiribati
KP - Korea, South
KR - Korea, Republic
KW - Kuwait
KG - Kyrgyzstan
LA - Laos
LV - Latvia
LB - Lebanon
LS - Lesotho
LR - Liberia
LY - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
LI - Liechtenstein
LT - Lithuania
LU - Luxembourg
MO - Macau
MK - Macedonia, The former Yugoslav Republic of
MG - Madagascar
MW - Malawi
MY - Malaysia
MV - Maldives
ML - Mali
MT - Malta
MH - Marshall Islands
MQ - Martinique
MR - Mauritania
MU - Mauritius
YT - Mayotte
MX - Mexico
FM - Micronesia, Federated States Of
MD - Moldova, Republic of
MC - Monaco
MN - Mongolia
MS - Montserrat
MA - Morocco
MZ - Mozambique
MM - Myanmar
NA - Namibia
NR - Nauru
NP - Nepal
NL - Netherlands
AN - Netherlands Antilles
NC - New Caledonia
NZ - New Zealand
NI - Nicaragua
NE - Niger
NG - Nigeria
NU - Niue
NF - Norfolk Island
MP - Northern Mariana Islands
NO - Norway
OM - Oman
PK - Pakistan
PW - Palau
PS - Palestinian Territory, Occupied
PA - Panama
PG - Papua New Guinea
PY - Paraguay
PE - Peru
PH - Philippines
PN - Pitcairn
PL - Poland
PT - Portugal
PR - Puerto Rico
QA - Qatar
RE - Reunion
RO - Romania
RU - Russian Federation
RW - Rwanda
KN - Saint Kitts and Nevis
LC - Saint Lucia
VC - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
WS - Samoa
SM - San Marino
ST - Sao Tome and Principe
SA - Saudi Arabia
SN - Senegal
SC - Seychelles
SL - Sierra Leone
SG - Singapore
SK - Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
SI - Slovenia
SB - Solomon Islands
SO - Somalia
ZA - South Africa
GS - South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
ES - Spain
LK - Sri Lanka
SH - St. Helena
PM - St. Pierre and Miquelon
SD - Sudan
SR - Suriname
SJ - Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
SZ - Swaziland
SE - Sweden
CH - Switzerland
SY - Syrian Arab Republic
TW - Taiwan
TJ - Tajikistan
TZ - Tanzania, United Republic of
TH - Thailand
TG - Togo
TK - Tokelau
TO - Tonga
TT - Trinidad and Tobago
TN - Tunisia
TR - Turkey
TM - Turkmenistan
TC - Turks and Caicos Islands
TV - Tuvalu
UG - Uganda
UA - Ukraine
AE - United Arab Emirates
UK - United Kingdom
US - United States
UM - United States Minor Outlying Islands
UY - Uruguay
UZ - Uzbekistan
VU - Vanuatu
VE - Venezuela
VN - Vietnam
VG - Virgin Islands (British)
VI - Virgin Islands (USA)
WF - Wallis and Futuna Islands
EH - Western Sahara
YE - Yemen
YU - Yugoslavia
ZM - Zambia
ZW - Zimbabwe

How to add country or city capping to publisher ad tag?

When downloading the ad tag from Brand Central’s ad tag site, publishers receive documentation on how to modify the ad tags by adding additional parameters. An example of an ad tag page can be found here:

https://mybrandcentral.com/tags/?id=MTIxNzl8NTg0fGNqa0VJVVk0NjcA

Based on the campaign target audience and its strategic direction, publishers may want to restrict the campaign (or individual flights) to certain countries or cities, or prevent certain countries or cities from being exposed to the ad of a flight. This can be achieved via two new parameters bcGeoCountry and bcGeoCity which can be appended to the launch code provided on the publishers ad tag page.

The syntax for the parameters is as follows:

&bcGeoCountry=ALLOW:DE,AE,QR
--> ad ONLY shown if user from Germany, U.A.E. or Qatar

&bcGeoCountry=ALLOW:DE
--> ad ONLY shown if user from Germany

&bcGeoCountry=DISALLOW:OM,RU
--> ad ALWAYS shown except if user from Oman or Russia    

&bcGeoCity=ALLOW:Dubai,Berlin
--> ad ONLY shown if user from Berlin or Dubai

&bcGeoCity=DISALLOW:Sharjah
--> ad ALWAYS shown except if user from Sharjah

The allow, disallow, country parameter and cities can be in UPPER or lower case or cOmBINation of both. No spaces between allow/disallow command and parameters, and the country and city list can have unlimited parameters.

If the flight parameter prevent the ad from being shown, either Brand Central internal ad inventory or an empty spacer.gif banner in the relevant size is being shown with descriptive <ALT> and <TITLE> text information showing the detected city/country and ALLOW/DISALLOW parameters.

What can geo-targeting be used for?

Geo-targeting by country or city can be particularly helpful for restricting certain internet users in the world from being exposed to an ad, for example: A bank is preparing for an IPO campaign that has legal restrictions to show the marketing efforts only in a certain country, or preventing from being seen in another country. The allow and disallow country command cater for that.

Another example could be to limit media wastage by restricting banners shown through Brand Central only to users to a certain city, where an event is being promoted.

The options are endless, and the combination of allowing or disallowing countries and/or cities to be included in the geo-targeting capping options of Brand Central provides flexibility to those publishers who do not have this functionality as part of their ad servers.

Other recommended articles

• How to generate publishers ad tags
• How to access campaign reports by country and city
• List of ISO Country codes

Campaign and flight data can be viewed on screen or conviently exported into Microsoft Excel reports (with charts) showing the data grouped and totalled by the city of origin, e.g. where the impression, click or post-click activity was originated from. Total and unique data per campaign and per flight is available.

The geotargeting database with country and city information is updated on a monthly base and as accurate as paid supplier databases provide the data.

Assuming that the media plan created under the media planning module has gotten signed off, the first step would be to change the campaign status to ‘approved’ in order to start work on the media plan in the creative module.

How to change status of the media plan?

Agency media planners and traffickers should follow this process:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency module “Media Planner”
  • Highlight campaign and click on edit campaign button in order to modify campaign settings
  • Scroll down and change campaign status to ‘Approved’
  • After Saving status, press PTF button in order to push campaign status to all flights

The next step would be to extract the specification sheet and the Brand Central ‘ClickTAG’ encoding documentation to send to your creative agency.

How to extract spec sheet and ‘ClickTAG’ documentation?

Agency media planners and traffickers should follow this process to extract the required documents of the approved campaign:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency module “Creative”
• Highlight campaign and click on XLS button to extract the specsheet and the ClickTAG documentation.

Once the creative agency has provided the necessary files in the required formats with the correct flash clickTAG encoding, the next logical step would be to upload the creatives onto the system and to link them to the respective flights

How to upload creatives onto Brand Central?

Agency media planners and traffickers should follow this process to upload creatives onto the system:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency module “Creative”
• Highlight campaign and switch to ‘view creative’ module by clicking on and then start to upload the creative which allows user to see all past and present creatives on a single screen which is updated in real time.  Once you enter the viewing mode you can use the buttons to add, edit/link or delete creatives respectively.

Once you upload the creative and press save you would be able to see a screen as below:

Once you are able to see the screen shown above, it implies that your creative has successfully been uploaded. Now the creative has to be linked to the correct flights. This can be done by clicking on the link creative Tab and linking as shown below. Please do remember to link the correct flights to the uploaded creative.

How to upload screenshots?

Agency media planners and traffickers should follow this process:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency module “Reporting”
• Highlight campaign and click on button to open Screenshot module
  • Use buttons to Add New, Edit and delete screenshots respectively.
  • Please do note to use proper naming conventions so as to enhance usability.

How to view screenshots?

Agency media planners, traffickers and Clients should follow this process to view the screenshots already uploaded:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency/client module “Reporting”
• Highlight campaign and click on button to open Screenshot module

From here you can either

• Use the button to view each uploaded screenshot in pop up window with the comments and all details visible or
• Use the direct links under “click to view “to view each uploaded screenshot in a light box plugin which can be closed by pressing the “Esc” key or by clicking “Close” button.

You can find a screenshot below on how both options can be done from the same screen.

Also please find a screenshot on how the uploaded screenshot is viewed with the lightbox plugin.

Brand Central has a module called ‘Flight Bundling’ which caters for combining multiple creative flights to one or more bundles and it is this module which we will be using to achieve our goal.

The basic idea here is to split flights within the media plan according to the necessary weightage of the creative executions and then to bundle these flights up so that eventually only a single launch code is provided to the publisher with complete control over creative rotation lying within Brand Central

How to setup the flight bundles?

Agency media planners and traffickers should follow this process:

• Login to Brand Central
• Select agency module “Media Planning”
• Highlight campaign and click on button to open Quick Flighting module where all media planning is being done
  • Create the required number of flights corresponding to the number of creative executions within the same publisher and assure that the creative size and language e.g. English 468×60 is the same. Make sure that the flight status is set to ‘online’
  • Mark the flights that you would like to combine to a new bundle by clicking the checkboxes at the beginning of the flight row
  • Use the ‘Add to flight bundle button’ . Please note that you need to have at least one flight selected, and you cannot add flights from multiple publishers or different creative to a new bundle.
  • Once all the required flights have been bundled, select the ones which are scheduled to go live at a later date and set their flight status as paused
  • If you would like to add more flights to the same bundle at a later stage, mark at least one flight from the existing bundle and others and then follow the same procedure. New flights in the bundle are marked with a color automatically.
  • At some point during the media planning stage, use the creative module and upload and link multiple (different) creative to each flights in the bundle

The following screenshot taken at the start of the campaign shows the Quick Flighting module with the ad bundle option for a sample campaign with different creatives for each month.

Once the campaign is live and running, change the status of flights at the appropriate timelines to pause a certain creative and to put the next one live through the Media Planning module. This way we can make any number of creative changes without having to send a separate launch code to the publisher every time this is done.

The following screenshot taken at the beginning of the next month shows the reporting module with the flight statistics for the campaign so far.

The net total budget column is calculated as the sum of all flight net cost (or budget) from the client to the publisher, which is the line item unit price * number of impressions, clicks etc. booked minus any media discounts provided.

The total net budget amount typically matches the booking order value on the purchase order to the publisher. When drilling down into e.g. flight reporting, the break down by flight is also shown as ‘Cost per Click’, ‘Total Cost’ and ‘Cost to Date’.

Clients or Agencies do not have that net budget column as it refers to potential confidential data kept in the seperate media planning module.