Custom interactions track user engagement with your ad (for example, how many times a user clicked a button or rolled their mouse over a section). Custom interactions must be coded in the files of you ad so they are scanned by the system automatically when the workspace is uploaded into Amazon Ad Server (AAS).
Each custom interaction can be reported up to ten times per impression. For example, if you have an ad with three custom interactions, each interaction can be reported a maximum of ten times, for a maximum of 30 times for that impression.
There are four types of custom interactions:
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Click-through: Used to measure clicks and navigate to an external URL when clicked. You can define the click-through URL settings to determine, for example, which URL opens and the position of the window.
Example: Some agencies use custom interactions to track their click-throughs rather than simply using the default click-through. They can set up a custom interaction called mainLink to click-through to their landing page. The interaction in turn is set up as a custom interaction in the creative. This enables them not only to track click-throughs that are counted uniquely, but also the actual interaction mainLink as a custom interaction that is counted each time a user triggers it.
Important
Important: If a creative was built to include a custom interaction, during the campaign trafficking process a user will need to toggle to Interactions within the Click-through & Events spreadsheet in order to implement the click-through URL for the specified custom interaction.
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User Action: Used to track different user action events, such as clicking buttons, interacting with part of an ad, and rolling over part of an ad. You can define URLs that are called once a User Action is triggered. Clicks refer to clicking buttons, not navigating to an external URL. These two actions are measured differently in AAS reports.
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Automatic Event: Used to measure ad timeline events, such as a video that is watched until the end.
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Timer: Measures custom duration in the ad, for example, the amount of time a game was played.
In AAS, you configure custom interactions on the asset level and displayed accordingly in linked master and placement ads.
Important
Important: To see the custom interactions section, the ad must include at least one custom interaction coded in it. (Note that this does not include EB.clickthrough() without any parameters, since this is a default click-through.) In addition, the ad format must allow custom interactions.
Once a custom interaction has been added, you can perform a set of specific actions relevant only to that level. For example, you can add custom interactions only on the asset level, not on the ad level.
The following workflow displays the custom interaction actions according to their location in AAS.
Note
Note: Custom interactions are not available and cannot be applied in the standard banner ad format. They will not be tracked in AAS, appear in reports, or be available in the ad view in AAS even if they are added in the ad code.
You can add custom interactions to the code in your workspace before uploading it to AAS. Alternatively, during the ad creation process, you can add custom interactions to your assets that are already uploaded in AAS using the built-in code editor.
The AAS HTML API is used for including custom interaction code that should be added to the HTML Workspace. For more information, see Methods.
Initially, custom Interactions are coded by the creative developer into the HTML asset. When you upload the assets to AAS, the system scans your files for any relevant custom interaction metadata. If found, it is displayed in the asset's custom interactions tab. There is a tab for each custom interaction type and a tab that lists all custom interactions.
On the asset level in the AAS code editor, you can add custom interactions manually and delete user-defined custom interactions. Custom interactions deleted from assets are removed automatically from ads using those assets.
An Asset can contain up to 1000 custom interactions.
The Custom Interactions section appears on the ad level only if an asset, which is assigned to the ad, contains custom interactions. You cannot add or remove custom interactions on the ad level; however, you can set the interaction reporting name, determine whether the interaction is included in the interaction rate, and whether to close the related parts of the ad after the interaction occurs. You can also assign a redirect URL to your custom interactions, which generally applies to clickthrough type interactions, although other types of interactions can also redirect the user to a click-through URL if required.
The names of the custom interactions coded in an ad can be dynamically generated. For example, if you have multiple clickable products in an ad, the product name can be stored as a variable. Then, when clicking on any product, the custom interaction that fires can be coded, such as EB.clickthrough("ProductClick_"+productName). This is a dynamically-generated name for the custom interaction because the productName part of it is a variable (not a constant) originating from a feed or some other source. For more information, see Work with Dynamic Interaction Names.
The Interaction Monitor tracks all the interactions that were defined in your ad including EB interactions, custom interactions, and video interactions. For example, if you added video to your ad using the AAS Video component, you can test that all of the video interactions are tracked appropriately. For more information about the interaction monitor located in Preview, see Previewing Your Ads.
If you configured your custom interactions to be included in the interaction rate, you can view engagement performance for these interactions. The Interaction Rate metric, categorized as an Engagement metric in Analytics, includes custom interactions. For more information see Grid: Dimensions and Metrics for Aggregated Reports.
Note
Note: If the custom interaction is set to Count as Click, not every custom interaction will be recorded as click. Clicks are counted only once per impression. If an impression with more than one custom interaction is set as Count as Click, only the first interaction of the impression is added to the click counter. In this fashion, you can get more custom interactions than clicks even when all the interactions are marked as Count as Click.
Metrics appear in the AAS Verification dashboard and analytics reporting. You configure the report name on the master ad level and view this report in the analytics reporting. For more information, see About analytics reporting.
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