Audience Tracking

Why Do Publishers Track Website Traffic

Proper tagging is crucial for effective digital advertising and audience segmentation. It helps with:

• Measurement – Tracking user actions to optimise ad spend and improve campaign ROI.

• Audience Building – Creating precise segments for retargeting and lookalike audiences which can in turn be used in your Campaign Packages.

Below, Flow's tagging guidelines and what we consider as best practice are discussed.

The main tagging platform that Flow works with is Google Tag Manager (best for most Flow Publishers):

• Centralised tag management, making it easier to deploy and manage multiple tags without modifying site code directly.

• Flexible event tracking (clicks, form submissions, page views).

• Supports custom HTML, JavaScript, and third-party tags like Lotame.

• Built-in triggers and variables for structured data capture.

• Common tags supported: Custom GTM, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Lotame, Meta Pixels, TikTok Pixels

Common Events to Track For

• Page Views (e.g., Product or Listing Views)

• Lead Submissions (e.g., Enquiries or Sign-Ups)

• Searches (e.g., Filtered Product or Listing Searches)

• Purchases (e.g., Completed Transactions)

• General website traffic

An Example: Tracking Page Views of Electronic Products for Flow's Demo Organisation, D&G

For this example, we’re setting up tags to track viewers of electronics products on D&G’s e-commerce website. Note, that it is useful as a publisher to ensure that your website has a consistent way of tracking product information either in the Data Layer, or in the URL. This ensures the ability to accurately track traffic and event-specific actions in a manner that can be further segmented to more powerful audiences, as opposed to just general website traffic.

1. A Consistent Data Layer – Each electronics page includes a data layer object with a category reference to "electronics".

2. Predictable URL Structure – Electronics pages contain a keyword like /electronics/ or category=electronics in their URLs.

We will use Google Tag Manager (GTM) as the central hub for managing all tags. Following the GTM Set-up, a few tag examples are provided (it is not compulsory to use them all).

1. GTM Set-up

For ease of setting up any customisable segments, a data layer rich in variables is useful. A data layer could look like the following, note that there is an element called "productCategory" which will help us create tags later on. There are some other useful parameters here such as price, which could be used another time to create audience segments based on pricing bands.

<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
window.dataLayer.push({
    "productCategory": "electronics",
    "productID": "DG12345",
    "productName": "Bluetooth Noise-Cancelling Headphones",
    "productPrice": 2999.00,
    "productBrand": "D&G",
    "currency": "ZAR"
});
</script>

An alternative to the data layer set-up is to have descriptive URL's, however this is fairly limiting in the amount of information one can realistically pass through.

In terms of the Trigger Set-up:

• Trigger Type: Page View

• Trigger fires on: Page Views

• Condition:

  • Page URL contains /electronics/ OR

  • productCategory equals electronics

1. Meta Pixel Set-up

Ensure the base Meta Pixel code is installed on all relevant pages. Below is an example of what the HTML for a Meta Pixel would be. This is a powerful audience type to use as most campaigns that other publishers have launched through Flow are via Meta.

<!-- Meta Pixel Code -->
<script>
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq('init', 'YOUR_PIXEL_ID'); 
fbq('track', 'PageView');
</script>
<noscript><img height="1" width="1" style="display:none"
src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=YOUR_PIXEL_ID&ev=PageView&noscript=1"
/></noscript>

1. GA4 Set-up

Google Analytics 4 uses an event-driven data model, which is useful for e-commerce tracking. Below is the script used for this tag type:

<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());

  // GA4 Measurement ID
  gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX');  // Replace with your GA4 Measurement ID

  // Custom View Item event for Electronics products
  gtag('event', 'view_item', {
    item_name: '{{Product Name}}',
    item_id: '{{Product ID}}',
    item_category: '{{Product Category}}',
    item_brand: '{{Product Brand}}',
    price: '{{Product Price}}',
    currency: '{{Currency}}'
  });
</script>

1. Google Ads Set-up

This is to capture conversions for conversion-based ad optimisation.

<script>
gtag('event', 'conversion', {
    send_to: 'AW-123456789/abc123',
    value: '{{Product Price}}',
    currency: '{{Currency}}',
    items: [{
        item_name: '{{Product Name}}',
        item_id: '{{Product ID}}',
        item_category: '{{Product Category}}',
        item_brand: '{{Product Brand}}',
        price: '{{Product Price}}'
    }]
});
</script>

Note, that the above structure and examples can be used for a variety of different events or other segmentation types. It is important to use tools such as GTM preview/debug mode to ensure that your tags are firing properly.