Resonate Media Tag Implementation in Facebook / Meta

Overview of Resonate’s Dynamic Media Click Tag

Resonate’s media click tag is a redirect URL with several components to it. It is designed to allow users to pass through both hard-coded and dynamic parameter values from their ad placements into Resonate Ignite, which allows users to then create and analyze audiences of media engagers in Ignite, defined in part by which components of a media campaign they engaged with.

The click tag has three parameter fields through which users can pass this information, as well as a parameter field that accepts the destination landing page URL. The tag will redirect the visitor to the URL specified in that parameter, and will include any tracking parameters that are formatted correctly in the landing page URL’s query string.

To ensure proper implementation and formatting of the Resonate Dynamic Media Click Tag in Facebook / Meta’s ad management platform, please follow the process below.

Create a Dynamic Media Click Tag

Log in to Resonate Ignite, and follow the instructions at the following Resonate Knowledge Base article to create your own Dynamic Media Click Tag:

• Creating Your Dynamic Media Tag

If your Customer Success Manager (CSM) or other Resonate contact has already provided a Dynamic Media Click Tag to you separately, you may be able to skip this step and use the code provided to you. If you’re uncertain whether to create a new tag for any reason, reach out to your CSM for assistance.

Add the Dynamic Media Click Tag to your ad

Go to the “Destination” menu of your ad, and insert the tag code into the “Website URL” field. Keep track of any existing landing page URL you had placed for the ad, as that URL will be reinserted into the proper parameter in the tag.

Edit and format the tag URL for your needs

Within the “Destination” menu of your ad, click on the “Build a URL Parameter” link below the “Website URL” field. This will open a new form where you can make changes to the individual parameters contained in the tag.

Edit Custom Dynamic Parameter Fields

Within the “Build a URL Parameter” form, scroll down to the “Custom parameters” section. Facebook will have automatically parsed the Resonate tag into its component parameters. For more detailed information on each parameter, you can refer to the information on the following Resonate Knowledge Base article:

• Implementing your Media Tag

1. The “cachebuster” parameter is intended to receive a random-number-generator macro or timestamp macro in order to ensure each tag load on a visitor’s device is unique and prevents the browser from loading a locally stored copy of the Resonate tag. Facebook doesn’t have that type of macro available by default, so this can be left with the placeholder “[cache_buster]” text if needed.
2. The “sourcekey” and “event” parameters are hard-coded to specific text values when the tag is created in the Ignite platform. These must be left as-is, since they route the tag traffic data to the right accounts once it hits our servers.
3. The “partnerid”, “campaignid”, and “creativeid” are the three dynamic parameter fields through which hard-coded text or ad server macros can be passed. The values passed through these parameters will be loaded into Ignite for use in audience building. For example, this allows you to analyze an audience who clicked on “Ad Set ABC” and compare them against a different audience that clicked on “Ad Set XYZ”, or compare clickers from partners like Facebook or Google, etc. Although the parameters are preformatted with names like “partnerid” and “campaignid”, you can opt to pass through any category of information through one of those fields. For example, you can pass through a placement ID macro in the “campaignid” parameter if you have no need to distinguish different campaigns in the Ignite platform.
4. The “lp” parameter stands for “Landing Page”, and is where your original website URL will be reinserted.

For the three dynamic parameter fields, you can use any of Facebook’s dynamic URL parameter macros to pass information to Ignite, or hard-code the text values yourself. An example setup is included in the screenshot below. For more information on how to use Facebook’s dynamic URL parameter macros, see Facebook’s resources below:

• Facebook: Specifications for URL dynamic parameters

Edit the “lp” Landing Page Parameter Field

For the “lp” parameter, you’ll want to reinsert your original Website URL or landing page URL into this parameter field. There are a few formatting requirements when doing this:

• Ensure that your URL begins with the HTTPS protocol, e.g. use “https://resonate.com” instead of “www.resonate.com” or “resonate.com”.
• Your website URL must include exactly one question mark “?” character to denote the start of the query string within your landing page structure. This is necessary because the Resonate redirect tag has its own “?” character denoting its own query string, and Facebook’s ad platform may not place other tracking parameters appropriately without that additional query string indicator in your landing page URL. If your landing page URL already had another custom query string parameter included after a “?” character, such as with a parameter specifying a unique product ID on a shopping page, you should not add a second “?” character to the URL.
  • Having zero “?” characters in your landing page URL may lead to Error 404 HTTP status codes when users land on your website if you’re using additional UTM parameters.
  • Having two or more “?” characters in your landing page URL may lead to UTM and other tracking parameters being removed from the landing page URL before site analytics can capture it, preventing attribution and other measures. In particular, this erroneous behavior has been observed previously on Shopify product pages.

Add UTM tracking parameters

If you wish to use UTM parameters, you can include them from within the “Tracking” menu of the Facebook ad creation page. The “Tracking” menu has its own “Build a URL parameter” form which looks very similar to the one in the “Destination” menu, but the UTM parameters added there will instead be appended to the very end of the “Website URL” field, and delimited with ampersand “&” characters. This is why the question mark “?” character is required in the landing page URL, to ensure the parameters added from the “Tracking” menu will be formatted appropriately and carry through to the landing page.

If you are using UTM parameters for your ads, it is very important not to implement them through the pre-formatted fields in the “Build a URL parameter” form under the “Destination” menu of your ad. This is because Facebook’s ad manager will automatically insert those UTM parameters into the Resonate tag’s query string, not your landing page URL, causing those UTM parameters to be lost when traffic is redirected to your site.

Test and confirm tag URL is functioning

Once you’ve made all the necessary changes to the tag code and URL structure, you can publish the ad and retrieve links from the ad to confirm it redirects traffic correctly and with your parameters intact. If there’s any concern about publishing the ad fully before testing, you can publish a cloned version of the ad or ad set that’s not scheduled to be published for a while, just for testing purposes. Then within the ad unit’s preview section, click on the “Share” drop down and select either “Facebook desktop Feed” or “Facebook Right Column” to generate a Facebook page with the ad embedded in it. It may take several minutes after an ad is published for it to appear on the testing pages. You can then click on the ad or right-click and inspect the URL to visually confirm it’s redirecting traffic correctly.