Here's a quick overview of Host & Post campaigns:
Buyers/Advertisers:
1. Host & Post buyers or advertisers will have a this icon
under Class in Advertisers > Maintenance.
2.Designate an advertisers as a Host & Post buyer by going to Advertisers > Maintenance > Info > "Edit Account Info" > Extras, and setting "Available As Buyer" to Yes.
Forms:
1. By building a Form, HTML is created that you place on a landing page for collecting data from users.
2. The Form collects the data per your specifications and then can be organized to fit the needs of specific buyers by selecting fields, excluding unwanted leads, mapping the data, and other functions under Buyer Tools.
Label
Describe or name what information you're asking the user to fill in. This will actually show up in the final form next to the selection option. Examples would be First Name, Address, Email, Pay Day Schedule, Loan Amount Requested, Are you Currently Insured?, etc. Change these at any time.
Input
This is a specific, abbreviated name used in the HTML, such as a Label called "First Name" might have an Input value of "fname". Typically, these names should be via posting specifications from your buyer, or they can be mapped to the buyers specifics later.
Host & Post - Set Up Basics
Here's a quick overview of Host & Post campaign functions:
Campaigns > Host and Post > Build Form: Set up fields for a new form or make a template as a basis for future forms.
Campaigns > Host and Post > Manage Forms: Edit forms, edit buyers and their needs, test the form, and other functions.
Campaigns > Host and Post > Affiliate Logs: Review data sent by affiliates.
Host & Post - Build Form
Start your Host and Post campaign by building a form that sets up the storage and organization within Hitpath of information being sent by affiliates. It also validates the formatting and content of this incoming information, generates an html version of the form and posting rules that can be sent out to affiliates for their setup, and last but not least, allows you to test and debug your form before taking it live.
To begin, navigate to Campaigns > Host and Post > Build Forms menu. First, name your form and give it a description. These are internal names for reference and can be anything you'd like or be changed later. Next build rules for each piece of info that will be collected through the form. Add as many fields as needed by simply hitting the "Add Form Field" button in the upper right.
Guide to Types & Formats
TypeFormatDescriptionAcceptedRejectedTextAlphaOnly alphabetic charactersRobert, Angela, JohnsonO'Brien, Johnny5TextAlphanumericAlphabetic, numeric, and other characters1306 Felicity Apt #2, roger1475, RL5/56FNoneTextEmailAccepts valid email formatrachel@hitpath.com, betty@umich.edu, angela2343@test.carachel@hitpath, umich.edu, betty123TextListAccepts only items you listDepends on listAnything not in listTextState AbbreviationValid 2-letter state abbreviationsCA, MIZZ, Alabama, CaliTextState NameValid state namesIdaho, New YorkIdoha, New PorkNumberCurrencyAllows 00.00 format1.99, 350.00Twenty, $2, 1,000NumberIntegerPositive numbers without decimal1, 245, 456781.99, 2/7, BNumberI.P. AddressValid I.P. address formats123.45.64.344, 208.117.88.131123.456.4, 2345345NumberListAccepts only items you listDepends on listAnything not in listNumberPercentageAllows numbers that can be a percent25, 100, 31/2, half, 10%NumberPhoneValid 10-digit phone number formats504 704 1365, 5436789003, (800) 455-2345567 9983, 846NumberPhone Prefix (3 digits)For 3-digit phone number sections810, 774, 3452342, 5047041235NumberPhone Prefix (4 digits)For 4-digit phone number sections1365, 0342, 3454504, 3459804985NumberSSNValid SSN formats123 45 6789, 123456789, 123-45-6789123456, 123-456-7891NumberSSN1 (3 digits)For 1st 3 digits of SSN123, 555, 98923, 5x6, 9090NumberSSN2 (2 digits)For middle 2 digits of SSN12, 55, 982, 5x, 909NumberSSN3 (4 digits)For last 4 digits of SSN1234, 5555, 9897234, 5x61, 90901NumberZip Code (5 digits)For 5-digit zip code format70130, 10017, 6574370130-3561, 1056, 789v5Date/TimeDate (MM-DD-YYYY)Dates formatted with separating dashes10-17-2013, 12-31-199910-17-13, 12/31/1999Date/TimeDay (DD)2-digit day of month, less than 3212, 01, 30111, 35Date/TimeListAccepts only items you listDepends on listAnything not in listDate/TimeMonth (MM)2-digit month, less than 1301, 10, 12Feb., 15Date/TimeTime (HH:MM:SS) (24-hr)24-hour, minutes, and seconds23:59:59, 07:00:003:30PM, 7:13Date/TimeYear (YY)2-digit year01, 13, 992013, '12Date/TimeYear (YYYY)4-digit year1999, 201399, '13
Rule - While Format allows you to specific the general restrictions on the formatting of the incoming in formation, Rule lets you go one step further and restrict the actual content of the information coming in. For instance, if you were running an offer that was only valid in certain states, you could set a rule up for a state entry field that would tell the system to only accept posts that came from those states. Rules work on simple logic
Rules of course have little meaning until you define the actual items that you are looking to match the logic with, which you can do in Values
Value - Here you can define the specific restrictions you'd like to place on incoming data content. You can enter any number of incoming values you would like to restrict the information to, separating each value with the | symbol (located directly above the enter key on most keyboards). For instance, if the offer was limited to only the states of California, Michigan, and Louisiana and you were collecting the 2 state abbreviation for them, you could enter in the rules as "EQUALS" and the values as CA|MI|LA . The system would then not accept any post that came in with a different value than CA, MI, or LA for that field. Similarly if the offer was restricted to only ages 18-40, you could use the Between function to set the values so that the Min|Max values allowed equaled 18|40. Or of course, you could use a list…
Using Lists and Values - as mentioned above, choosing List as your format allows you to offer the user a set of limited options to select using a dropdown menu. You'll notice that whenever you select the List option, the Rules will automatically switch to "Equals" and prompt you thus to enter in your values that will appear in the dropdown menu. For instance, in the offer above, instead of restricting your age limits by using the Min|Max feature, you could simply select List, and enter in 18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|27|28|29|30|31|32|33|34|35|36|37|38|39|40 as your Value. This is a great option for set of limited and specific options that you want to predefine for the user. Another use would be for instance if you need the user to pick which education program they were interested in out of Administrative, Forensic, Computer Repair, and Culinary. Rather than restrict the values and leave it up to the user to enter in the fields correctly (the exact right name, spelled correctly and with correct capitalization, etc) you would simply use a List and Values to define it, so that Administrative|Forensic|Computer Repair|Culinary were your values.
The last three columns - Required, Unique, and Encrypted - allow you to do the following: Required: This field has to be filled out or else the user will not be allowed to submit the form/it won't be accepted by the system as a successful post regardless of other content
Unique: Marking a field as Unique means that we will only accept one submission of each value this field to be stored in the database. When the user enters in their information to a field marked Unique, the system will review the value they entered, check and see if that value is already stored in the database for that field, and if so, not accept the post. This is a useful restriction for fields such as Social Security Number, email, etc. that you would expect to be unique to each user and so essentially you're stopping repeat information or repeat users from filling out the form multiple times with the same information.
Encrypted: This adds an additional level of encryption to the value in the form field when sending the information. Recommended for particularly sensitive fields such as social security number, banking information, email, etc. Trash can icon: this allows you to delete a form field when you are creating/adding it. Note that once a form is saved, you can no longer delete a field out of the form. The Trash icon will change to a light switch icon that allows you to deactivate the question, but you cannot fully delete it as this would delete the historical data associated with this form field in the database.
Now that you've created and entered your form according to your or your buyer's specification, you can hit "Next" to save the form. You'll be taken to a review page that allows you to view all of the fields and settings you've just entered. REVIEW CAREFULLY. Once you have saved a form, you can only change certain fields and not others.
You can change: Label
Input
Rule
Value
Required
You can NOT change:
Type
Format
Unique
Encrypted
Right now, the form is very unforgiving in that if you make a mistake in one question, you need to change the entire form, so definitely use this review process wisely. You can use the "Make Changes" option in the upper right to go back and edit your form. Once you are ready, you'll see you have two options, Save Form or Save as Template
Save Form:
This creates the form, activating it and locking it down to the changes mentioned above. It will automatically move you over to the Manage Form page as soon as you save it.
Save as Template:
This handy feature allows you to save this form as a template which you can apply to other forms. This can be very useful if you're say, creating several forms from one advertiser that will all begin with the same ten questions, or if you want to create a template with all of the basic information that is typically collected. If you hit Save as Template, you will see the form appear in Manage Forms, but without the additional options. Tip: to later go back and build a form from the template, first click "Build New Form" and then you'll see in your new form a toolbar on the top of the page that says "Choose a Form Template". Select from all saved templates the one you would like, and then hit the Apply button at the far right of the toolbar. You'll see that it automatically enters all the fields from the template!
For Text, you have Equals, Does Not Equal, Contains, Excludes, while for numbers and date/time you'll also have Greater Than, Greater than or Equal to, Less Than, Less than or Equal to, and a Between option.
Tip: Note that due to the nature of their logic, Equals and Does Not Equal are case sensitive while Contains and Excludes are NOT case sensitive
Host & Post - Manage Forms
Now that you've become a master at building forms, you're ready to take the next step and manage them! Manage forms is where you can generate the html and posting information (complete with links) for the affiliates, as well as make any changes to your forms, and Manage Forms is where you will set up your buyers as well!
The first thing you'll see on loading the Manage Forms page is a listing of all of the forms you currently have saved in your system. Let's look at the information/options displayed left to right:
+
This is how you edit your forms. Clicking on the
icon in this column will take you into the form itself. Here you can make limited changes to the Labels, Input, Rules, and Values, and Required Fields as well as change the name or description of the form. Note you cannot change type or formatting once the form as been created, nor can you change a unique or encrypted status. One important addition to this screen from the Build Forms screen is the "Light Switch" button that you see to the far right of each field. It will automatically be set to "Green" when the form is saved, meaning that the field is active and in use. You can click on this to deactivate the question, and remove it from the active form. You cannot delete questions once they have been added to the form, but you can deactivate them. Conversely, you can also still add in additional fields here if necessary.
ID
This is the tracking ID assigned to this particular form, assigned to the forms in sequential order (thus you can assume that form 1 is older than form 15). You'll notice this ID appears in the tracking link for the form when generated.
"Form Name"
This is the name you assigned to the form. It can be modified at any point.
"Description"
This is the description you assigned to the form. It can be modified at any point.
Created
This will give you the date the form was created in your system
By
This will give you the initials of the admin user in your system that created the form.
Buyers
This is one of the most important sections of the Manage Forms screen, where you'll set up everything regarding your buyers for each form, including rules, data transport, Marking an Advertiser as a Buyer:
Any advertiser in your system can be set to also function as a host and post buyer. Simply navigate to Advertiser>Maintenance and View the profile of the advertiser you'd like to mark as a buyer. You'll see a line item permission in their profile that says "Available as Buyer". Set this to Yes and save.
Adding Buyers to a Form:
Click on the "Buyers" icon on the Manage Forms page for whatever form you're setting up buyers on. You'll see a page that informs you have not added any buyers yet. To do so, use the toolbar at the top of the page and click on the dropdown menu that says "Available Buyers". This will give you a list of all buyers in your system, and you can check the box by the name of each buyer you'd like to assign to the form. When you've selected all the buyers you want to add, click on the "Add Buyers" button at the far right of the toolbar. You should now see the advertisers you just selected appear on the screen. Activating Buyers:
By default, you'll notice that any buyer that you add is greyed out and set to be inactive, meaning we won't push any offers out to them. To activate a buyer, click the light switch
icon on the far right of their row. This should change them to the
green "on" switch and activate them. Whether the buyer is activated or not, you can fully edit them with the following fields.
Order: This is an important field to know. When a lead comes in, it is sent out to buyers in the order that they are listed here. To determine the order in which leads should be set to the buyers, use the
green up arrow by each buyer's name to change their positioning.
Tip: If you just want to send out leads in a "highest bidder" type format, you can use the Prioritize Price button to automatically sort the buyers by the highest to lowest Price.
Type
There are two types of form currently:
This is a standard host and post form and can be posted to, etc.
This is a template that you can use to apply to other forms (See Build Forms for questions)
"Actions"
The Actions will be where you spend the majority of your time in the Manage Forms area. Here, you can do the following
Buyers
This is one of the most important sections of the Manage Forms screen, where you'll set up everything regarding your buyers for each form, including rules, data transport.
Copy Form
This allows you to easily "clone" the form in question
Posting Instructions
Posting Instructions generates a document that describes all of the form fields you have set up, with their names, restrictions, and formatting. This is ideal for passing on to your own affiliates a document on how their forms should be set up.
Notes
This allows you to add any specific notes to the form, including instructions for affiliates, general restrictions, additional information needed, etc.
HTML
This screen allows you to do several things:
1. Debug the current form. This is a very handy tool to use when testing out your form before going live. To do this, select a campaign from the dropdown list after "Apply to". Any campaign that has this form assigned to it will appear in the dropdown menu. Next, select the affiliate that you are generating the form for. Once you've done so, click "Generate Form" and you'll see a version of your form in the left hand side of the screen. You'll notice your Labels are in evidence here, and any list items will appear as dropdown boxes; anything else should be a text field. You can actually type and fill in test information here and test the response you get from the form. You have one of two ways to test - at the top you'll see the option to "Test Buyers".
Test Buyers - "No": This tests the basic formatting and set up of your form. When you type in information, it will make sure that the information you've typed is being sent to the correct field names (this should always be the case in the debug page since it's reading directly from those field names). It will also do the formatting checks that you set up on the form, making sure that information put into an email field is formatted as an email, any Rules are met, etc. Feel free to test and play around with different information. When you've typed in your information, hit "Send Test" and you'll see the response come back from the server. It should first check on the field name matching and give you a list of "Accepted Fields" - these are the fields that are correctly named and being sent information to. Next it will check all the basic formatting and return a list of values being sent that are correctly formatted and accepted underneath "Valid Format". If all fields are correct, it will return a "SUCCESSFUL POST" message to you. If there is an error in any field, it will return an UNSUCCESSFUL POST message and then list the reason(s) why the post was not successful, so you know what needs to be changed or modified.
Test Buyers - "Yes": This performs all the same checks as above but with the added functionality of actually sending out a test post to whatever test URL you have currently set up for your buyer (see buyers above). If you've set conditions up for your buyers (see above) it makes sure the posted information matches at least one of those conditions and thus can be sold. Now, once the system runs through the Accepted Fields and Valid format checks above, it now will try to push it out to your various buyers just like in a real life sale, so you can check and make sure that your rules and conditions are set up correctly. The system will move through each buyer in order until they find an Accepted Response from the buyer. You'll see full information for each buyer - whether we are pushing it out or not based on the conditionals you've set and if so, whether we got an accept or deny response from the buyer. Again, we'll give you explicit responses so you can not only see if the post was sent out, but why it was not. After you get the "SUCCESSFUL POST" message saying that all the information is acceptable, you'll see for each buyer we run through a "BUYER POST UNSUCCESSFUL" or "BUYER POST SUCCESS". As soon as we have a buyer success response, we'll stop the process and count the sale in the system.
2. Generate an html encoded version of the form you just created to provide to affiliates. The affiliate can apply their own designs or modifications to this basic version of the form (as long as they don't change the pertinent information such as field name), but this provides them with an easy version. Click the
icon in order to see the HTML for the form
Notice at the top of this form, there is a URL that appears after "form action=". This is the tracking URL for the affiliate. By default, this is set to be the test URL, and would look something like this:
http://affiliate.yourdomain.com/hp/test.php?sid=2&pub=100001&form_id=17&c1=&c2=&c3=
As long as the affiliate is approved for the campaign you've selected and that campaign is active, they should be able to post test information there. That test link will return to them a message regarding the success of their post and let them know whether or not it was accepted, and if not, what information was invalid and prevented it from being accepted. When the affiliate is ready to move life with the offer, their link should be changed to the regular post link, which looks like:
http://affiliate.yourdomain.com/hp/post.php?sid=2&pub=100001&form_id=17&c1=&c2=&c3=
Note that the links are very similar, excepting that the "test.php" script has been changed to "post.php".
Tip: Affiliates also receive the same response messages as above if they were to test their information after integrating their form on to a real page and submitting a test post to the test.php link (see below), so these same robust response and trouble shooting tools are also available to the affiliate. This debug simply saves you the trouble of creating your own page and is a great shortcut/tool. It also gives you the ability to test your buyers, which the affiliate will not be able to see
Host & Post - Buyer Setup
So you've got your forms all set up and ready to go! Now comes the next important step - setting up each buyer who you will be attempting to post leads out to. As you saw in the Manage Forms Buyers screen, you can set basic information and descriptions and price for each buyer there, but Hitpath gives you a ton of options to customize each buyer and how/what information is being sent to them.
To edit each buyer setup, click on the
pencil icon in the Actions bar to edit the buyer. This should popup a module with the following tabs:
Scheduling
This screen allows you to set the days/hours that this particular buyer accepts leads. For instance, if your buyer doesn't accept weekend traffic, you can set it so we automatically only push leads out to him on weekdays. You can see your current settings on the scheduling grid, and to change them, you can simply click on a grid square to add that time in. You can highlight a square and use the blue arrow that shows in the lower left to drag and cover multiple grid squares and block off large amounts of time.
Posting Rules
This screen allows you to set filters and restrictions on what leads will get posted out to the buyer based on the information posted. For instance, if you have the field "Are you interested in continuing education?" and one buyer you work with is only interested in people that answer "Yes" to that question, you can use the Posting Rules to set it up so that we only post out a lead that received a Yes value for that field.
You can do this by using the dropdown options at the top of the screen:
a) Field: Select the field you'd like to filter based on
b) Rule: Select your logic (equals, contains, does not equal, between, etc)
c) Rule: Enter in your qualification (if you have more than one, remember to separate using pipe characters)
Once you're done, hit "Add Posting Rule"
Tip:You can also use this functionality to set up different price amounts or tiered payouts per buyer. For instance, if you are running a loan offer and the buyer will pay you 5 dollars for loans under 10,000 and 20 dollars for loans over 10,000, you can set up two instances of the buyer in the Manage Form Buyers screen with the two different price amounts, and then edit the posting rules for each accordingly.
Note you can have as many rules as you want here, but keep in mind that all rules will have to be met in order for the lead to be posted.
Posting Fields
Posting fields controls what information you are actually going to include in the post out to the buyer and what fieldname will be used when posting. Here will be a listing of all fields currently active in your form, and you'll see a notation beside each that says R (required) U (unique) or E (encrypted) as a helpful reference to your settings for this field.
If you'd like to send all of these fields and their values to the buyer when the lead is posted use the "Select All" checkbox at the upper right of the screen. Otherwise, simply select the checkbox next to each field to include it in the post. Anything not checked will not be sent to the buyer.
When you check a field, you'll notice that it will be automatically populated with the field name that you are collecting your information in. This field name is the default variable we use when posting out the information, but we do give you the option here to change it to anything if need be, should a particular buyer need a different value. For instance, on a particular form you may be collecting Gender as gender, but one of your four buyers may need to have it sent to them as gend. You can change it here for just that buyer.
Data Mapping
Similar to what we just looked at with Posting Fields, this allows you to change the way information is being sent to the buyer - however, rather than looking at the field name itself, this allows you to remap the values that are being entered in. For instance, as in the example above, if you were working with the field Gender and you were collecting the information as "Male" or "Female" but your particular buyer needed it sent to them as "M" or "F" you could set that to do so here.
In order for a form field to appear on this page, it needs to have been selected on the Posting Fields page as a field you're sending to this advertiser, and it needs to be in the List format (review "Build Forms" for what this means").
To enter in the mapped values, select the checkbox next to the field. Above the field, your current accepted values will appear. Simply type in the values you'd like to use for this buyer using the pipe character to separate them, and make sure there are in the same order as the ones above. For instance, you would see "Male|Female" appear when you selected the box for our example here, and you would type in "M|F" in the box (If you typed in (F|M this would be incorrect since the order is not the same!)
Custom Fields
Custom fields allows you to send the same piece of information to the buyer every time, in every form. This is very helpful for information such as partner id, or source number for instance, or any type of information that is
a) the same every post
b) not entered into the form by the user
c) does not need to be seen or modified by the affiliate
To add in, simply enter in the field name that it should be sent as in Field, and the value itself in the Value, and click Add Custom Field. You can add as many as you'd like, and delete any time
Note: Custom fields only displays if you are using GET, POST, or EMAIL as your data format (see below)
Data Transport
This is a very important page wherein you will set up all of the details about the format of the posted information and the location it's being sent to!
Data Format: Hitpath can send the information out in one of four formats: GET, POST, EMAIL or XML. Pick your buyer's preference from the dropdown.
URL: This is the post URL that should come from the advertiser - it can be copied and pasted here Testing URL: Many times buyers provide a URL to send test leads to. In Hitpath we'll automatically send leads using the test link or the debugging screen (See Manage Forms) to this URL. If the buyer didn't provide a separate testing URL, simply copy the main URL here as well.
Post Lead: Select Yes to post the lead, select No to not post the information
Timeout: This is the maximum amount of time that we will wait to receive a response from the buyer before moving onto the next buyer
Custom Headers:
Can be used if buyer needs custom headers (i.e. SOAP) passed with post data
Accept Response:
This is a very important field. Here is where you will place the accept response we are looking for from the buyer to confirm they have accepted the posted information. This information typically comes from the buyer directly and should be copied and pasted in. We look for an EXACT match to this information, otherwise, we consider it to be denied.
Tip: There are a few tokens you can use if your buyer is passing you back information within the response that may be different everytime - for instance, an order id. These are:
xxtransidxx - transaction or order id from the buyer.This will get stored as TransID in the detail reporting
xxpayxx - dynamic price amount. If the buyer does not have a preset price, but needs to pass you that information dynamically in their accept response, you can use this code. The amount sent back will be taken as the Earned amount in the reporting
xxurlxx - referring URL - this is the url that users should be sent to after completing the form.
Denial Response: Similar to the accept response, this is the set denial response you would get from the buyer. You can incorporate the same tokens as above if need be.
XML Wizard:
The XML Wizard makes it simple and easy to edit complex XML formatting that your advertiser may need the post data returned as. You can copy and past the XML they have provided you here, and then use the tokens you see to the right in the Field Legend Box to insert the appropriate values.
Tip: If you highlight in the XML where you want the information to go, and use "Ctrl + M" you will get a handy dropdown box body with the fields in it - simply select which one you want and we'll insert the token!
Note: The XML Wizard tab only appears when you have XML listed as your data format (see above)
