How To Create A Custom Channel

12.3 How To Create A Custom Channel

The URL Channels are especially useful if you have several websites, and have a general idea of the formats, colors, alignment etc. that works best for you.

Remember though, you still need the original, Custom Channels if you want to track ads across different domain names, based on ad sizes, formats, colors etc.

For instance, if I want to track left-aligned ads across all my websites (sites with different domain names), I need to group them together into a single channel and manually change the channel code for each page.

First, I name the new channel:

Fig. 12.2 Here comes a new channel...

Then I choose the Ad Type, Layout and Color of the ads I want to track:

Finally, it’s simply a matter of allocating an alternate URL if I don’t want public service ads, selecting the channel and copying and pasting the code onto each of the pages that contain these kinds of ad.

Fig. 12.3 Defining the ads to track in my new channel.

Of course, I would then have to repeat the process if I wanted to track ads of a particular color or size.

That’s very different to the process you use to create a URL Channel.

URL Channels are tracked automatically without the need for you to paste code. With Custom Channels, you’re going to have to go back to your own site, add the code in the appropriate pages and upload the changes to your server.

While that’s a bit of a headache, it’s a headache worth having.

Fig. 12.4 Creating the code for my new Channel.

Custom channels provide such a broad range of information — from how different locations are doing to how particular types of ad units affect your revenues — that without them, you’re working in the dark.