YTZ and Voluum

YTZ is a Toronto-based performance agency that specializes in monetizing mobile and web traffic. They have offers from a variety of verticals. To learn how to track their offers with Voluum, read the following guide.

Before you start, you should have the following things ready:

• An active Voluum account. And some knowledge of basic terms and features of Voluum.
• An active YTZ account.
• (Recommended) An SSL certificate enabled on your domain. Read the Enabling SSL for a Dedicated Domain article to learn more.

Once you have everything prepared, follow the steps described below.

Firstly, you need to obtain an offer from the YTZ platform. In order to do so, perform the following steps:

1. In YTZ, go to the Campaigns screen.
2. Provide offer filtering options, if necessary, by choosing appropriate options from drop-down menus. YTZ can supply you with standalone offers or with smartlinks, that are in fact offer rotators that automatically select the best offers. Click the Submit button.

3. Once you have selected the best offer for you, click the View details  button to go to an offer detail's screen.

   

4. If you have previously accepted YTZ's Terms and Conditions, go to step 5. If you have not done so yet, you must accept them before you can get a tracking link.  To accept them, do the following:

   1. Click the View Terms & Conditions button to view them.

      

   2. Tick the box next to the I agree to the Terms & Conditions text and provide your name and last name.

   3. Click the Submit button.

      

5. Scroll down to the Tracking links section in an offer's detail page, tick the box next to the I acknowledge and agree that I will only send the "Allowed" traffic listed above text and click the I Agree button.

   

6. In the same Tracking links section go to the Select a Landing Page step and select the landing page that you want to use with your offer from the drop-down menu or select the Direct option to directly link to your offer.

7. In the Configure tracking parameters step provide a token that Voluum uses to pass a click ID value in the SUBID1 text field. 

   Servers use request parameters to pass information between each other. These parameters are a part of a request link that, once activated, send information from a source platform to a target platform. Parameters come in parameter_name={token} pair, where:

   • parameter_name describes a value that is being passed and has to be recognizable by a target platform. YTZ uses s1 parameter name to pass a click ID value but you can use up to 5 other parameter names (from s1 to s5) to pass additional information from Voluum, such as Country or Publisher ID. To add more parameters, click the Show more button.
   • {token} (in YTZ called SubID) is an automatically replaceable placeholder that will be substituted with a concrete value by a source platform one a request link (offer URL in this case) is activated. Voluum uses the {clickid}. token to pass a click ID value.

   Voluum Note: You need to pass a click ID value if you want to set a postback to report conversions back to Voluum later on. Passing other pieces of information to YTZ is optional.

   Once you provide the {clickid} token to the SUBID1 text field you will notice that the tracking link below has been updated with this parameter.

8. (Optional) Select any restrictions by clicking appropriate options from the Select restrictions drop-down menu.

9. Click the  icon in the Get tracking link step to copy this link to clipboard. You will paste this link to Voluum as an offer URL in the second part of this article.

   

10. You do not need to provide any postback options here as we will set up postback at the account level, so it will be valid for all offers you will use.

Now, when you have obtained a tracking link, you can submit it to Voluum.

With an offer link copied to the clipboard, you have to go to Voluum and create an offer element. In order to do so, perform the following steps:

1. In Voluum, go to Offers.

2. Click the Create button and select the Offer option from a drop-down menu.

   

3. Provide a unique name of your offer in the Offer name text field.
4. Paste the copied tracking link into the Offer URL text field.

5. Select an appropriate option for tracking payout: 

   • Manual: Select the Manual radio button in the Payout section and provide the payout value.
   • Auto: Select the Auto radio button. Note that you will have to include the YTZ's token for passing information about payout in the postback URL to use automatic payout tracking. This is covered in the part III of this guide.
6. Click the Copy button next to the postback URL to copy it to the clipboard.

7. Click the Save button.

   

The last thing to do is to configure a postback URL in YTZ, so it can be used to report conversions to Voluum. In order to do so, perform the following steps:

1. In YTZ, go to the Postback screen.

2. Click the Add postback button. The Add a postback URL pop-up windows will appear.

   

3. In the drop-down menu select if you want to apply a postback on an account or at the campaign level. We recommend choosing the former as it will allow you to use this postback with other offers.
4. Paste the copied postback URL to the text field and replace the word REPLACE with YTZ's token used to store click ID value. In this setup it will be the {SUB1} token. If you have selected to track payout automatically, you need also to match the YTZ's {REVENUE} token with the payout parameter name. Substitute the word OPTIONAL next to this parameter name with the {REVENUE} token as shown on the image below.
5. Select the HTTPS option from the drop-down menu if you have an SSL certificate enabled on your domain, which is highly recommended.

6. Click the Add postback button.

   

Now you have set everything up. You can use the offer element that you have added to Voluum in your campaign funnel and all information will be passed back and forth correctly.