Eyeblaster

Understanding Discrepancies

AgendaUnderstanding Discrepancies

• What is a discrepancy?

• What causes discrepancies?

• Common Discrepancy Types

• What is need to resolve discrepancies (and why)?

• Examples of past discrepanies.

What is a discrepancy?

• Simply put, a discrepancy is a disagreement between reporting figures.

• Between Eyeblaster and Publishers, Eyeblaster and Agencies or other 3rd parties.

• Generally accepted and defined by the IAB as 10% difference.

What Causes Discrepancies?

• The short answer: Lot’s of things• The Internet itself.• Heavy pages or long download times.• Ad Setup• Bad Tracking tags• Reused tracking tags• Improper Cache Busting• Scripted and Meta Refresh• Ad Rotators• Improper tag implementation• document.write(<script>);• Duplicate Tracking• Server Errors• Client Error• Page or site flow.• Duplicate tags.

Common Discrepancy Types

• Cache Busting Issues.

• Re-Used Tracking Information.

• Improper Tag Implementation.

• Ad or Campaign Setup.

Common Publisher Discrepancy Causes

• Cache busting problems

• Improper tag implementation

• DHTML copies

• Meta refreshes and JavaScript refreshes.

• JavaScript Ad Rotators

Common Agency Discrepancy Causes

• Re-used tracking tags.

• Duplicated tracking tags

• Custom interaction setup

• Cache busting problems

What is need to resolve discrepancies (and why)?

• Test page or live URL.

• Reports with daily breakdowns.

• Account/Campaign/Flight/Ad/Report information

• What part of the report is in dispute.

Advantages of a Live URL

• It’s not too late to do something about it.

• There’s no need to try and replicate a specific environment.

• The cause should be in there and can’t be accidentally undone.

• Less guess work and theorizing.

• When that can’t happen a test page is the next best thing.

Reports with Daily Breakdowns

• Need to see when the discrepancy occurred.

• Need to be able to verify the numbers.

• Gives us an idea where to look for a problem.

Account/Campaign/Flight/Ad/Report and Report Section

•It saves us time.

Things to Look for

• Cache Busting in Request Message inside sniffer software.

• Network URLs inside the DEBUG window are correct.

• URLs are only being used once in the campaign.

• 304 Response codes inside “sniffer” software.

Past Examples

• Server Side Cache Busting• No Cache Busting.• <noscript> problem• innerHTML/outerHTML copy• IE6 <iframe> bug