Blog

The ClickTAG variable is a tracking tool assigned by a publisher or ad serving network to a flash banner ad. It is also used to link the flash banner to a destination URL.

Okay. But why using ClickTAG when a link – the destination URL – can be hard coded into the SWF itself? Well, that’s because hard coding the click-through URL into the SWF would make click counting impossible. And that would kill the CPC advertising system – the popular system Google uses too.
 
Also, the ClickTAG variable has many other advantages:

1. Both sides – advertiser and publisher – can count clicks-throughs
2. You don’t need to modify the SWF itself if you need to change the destination URL
3. The destination URL can be easily checked without the help of a flash programmer

If you use BannerSnack to create banners and you need to advertise with “Publisher X” all you have to do is send it the exported SWF file and the destination URL where you would like the users land after clicking your ad.

However, if you want to embed the SWF yourself, you can use the ClickTAG SWF embed code generator or use this alternate method:
 

<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://www.example.com/file.swf?clickTag=http://www.destinationURL.com&clickTarget=_blank” width=”300″ height=”250″>

<param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always”/>

<param name=”movie” value=”http://www.example.com/file.swf?clickTag=http://www.destinationURL.com&clickTarget=_blank“/>

<param name=”bgcolor” value=”#FFFFFF”></object>

If you use BannerSnack to create flash headers, change the _blank value with _self.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under Banner Advertising Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.