Connect Outbrain to Nevian

Time needed: about 5 minutesLast updated:

Add Nevian's parameters to the tracking of your Outbrain campaigns, so every click and every sale shows its campaign, ad and publisher.

What you need

  • Access to your Outbrain account with permission to edit campaigns.
  • A Nevian workspace where you are the owner, an admin or a member. Viewers can't add ad platforms or tracking links.
  • The Nevian tracking script on the page your ads send people to. See Connect your website to Nevian.

Steps

  1. In Nevian, open Ad platforms and click Outbrain. In the Connect Outbrain window, choose Add tracking parameters, click Next twice and then Done. The parameters it shows are the Outbrain part; the tracking link you create next puts its own btc= in front.

    The Connect Outbrain window in Nevian on its last step, with the Done button highlighted.

  2. Open Tracking links and click New tracking link. Give it a name, choose Outbrain as the Ad platform, keep Direct as the tracking mode, enter your page in Landing page URL and click Create tracking link.

    The New tracking link form with Outbrain as the ad platform, Direct tracking and a landing page URL, and the Create tracking link button highlighted.

  3. In the tracking link's Setup, step 2 Paste the URL parameters in Outbrain shows a string that starts with btc=. Click Copy.

    The Setup of the tracking link, with the URL parameters string starting with btc= and its Copy button highlighted.

  4. In Outbrain, find the campaign and click its pencil icon to open the campaign's settings.

    The list of campaigns in Outbrain, with the pencil icon of a campaign highlighted.

  5. In the Tracking section, replace what is there with the string and click Submit at the bottom of the screen. Outbrain adds it to every ad in the campaign.

    The campaign settings in Outbrain, with the Nevian string in the Tracking section and the Submit button highlighted.

  6. Back in Nevian, open Logs › Clicks after the first clicks. Each click shows the tracking link and, under it, the ad it came from.

    Logs, Clicks in Nevian, with a new click showing the tracking link and the Outbrain ad ID under it.

Check that it works

  • In Logs › Clicks, click a row: UTM parameters shows the campaign, the ad and the publisher Outbrain filled in.
  • Live view shows each visitor the moment they land, with the tracking link.

Problems

Parameters in the ad's URL

Outbrain asks you not to add tracking parameters to the URL you submit as content: keep them only in the campaign's Tracking section. It also suggests leaving no / at the end of that URL.

Reports show {{ad_title}} instead of the title

Outbrain fills its macros on real clicks only, and only in the {{macro}} format. A link opened by hand keeps them as text. Paste the string exactly as Nevian gives it; {{ob_click_id}} must stay as it is.

There is no ad set in the reports

Outbrain has no ad set level: ads belong directly to the campaign. Nevian shows the campaign, the ad, the publisher and its section.

Still stuck? Write to [email protected].

Images are drawings of Outbrain's and Nevian's screens, not screenshots; the real screen may look a little different.