Hello, friends! Meet the new issue of Keitaro Best Practices. We can’t wait to tell you about “special” filters, as well as geo-profiles, with which you can significantly speed up filtering by geolocation.
In the previous articles, we created a campaign and configured parameters. Now it’s time to move on to setting up streams.
In total, Keitaro Tracker has 30+ main filters, 2 more plug-ins (ImKlo and HideClick), and the ability to add an unlimited number of your own custom filters. Of the 30+ basic ones, there are the well-known ones — such as IP, user agent, country, city, device type, etc. — and there are the less popular, but no less useful ones, which will be discussed today.
Timetable
Why Do You Need It?
The timetable filter allows you to set the time (according to the time zone specified in the settings) within which the tracker will receive traffic. On the screenshot, if the click comes from 00:00 on Tuesday to 23:59 on Sunday, then it will go to the stream.
How Can You Use It?
- You can split different traffic flows depending on the time of day. For example, let’s say you want to test multiple creatives for day and nighttime. So that you don’t have to build a schedule in the traffic source, you can upload a bunch of creatives from one adset and scatter them across streams directly in the tracker by filtering by adset + timetable. This approach will also allow you to compare daytime versus nighttime cost per click without stopping the auction.
- Redirect traffic to an alternative offer if your call center is unavailable. In different affiliate networks, you can often find repeating offers in which there can be a different call center with different working hours. Instead of waiting for a call the next day, you can check the local time and redirect traffic to the offer where the call center is still making calls.
Limit Clicks
Why Do You Need It?
The filter allows you to set a limit on clicks per stream. After reaching the limit, it will stop accepting traffic.
How Can You Use It?
- If you have achieved the optimal cost per click and, at the same time, want to test different landing pages, you can spread the landing pages into several streams and shed the same number of clicks on each one to check the CR of an individual landing page.
- When launching ads from Facebook and other “hard” sources, it makes sense to pass the first 15–30–50 clicks through the white stream, regardless of the characteristics of the click. This approach helps to reduce the likelihood of account blocking.
Filter Sub_id_N
Why Do You Need Them?
In KBP # 2, we analyzed the parameters of the campaign. These same parameters can be filtered by “the parameter” or the sub_id_N filter. The only difference is that when using a filter by sub_id, the tracker will check the value strictly according to the label that is registered according to the selected sub_id.
For example, in the campaign parameters in the sub_id_1 line, we have the parameter name – clickid. This means that when using a filter by sub_id_1, the tracker will search for either sub_id_1 or the clickid in the request. Anything else will be ignored. While using a filter by parameter, we can use any parameter from the entire list (the Parameter column), regardless of which line it is specified in.
How Can You Use Them?
There are countless cases of using these filters:
- Protection against bots by the presence of ad network parameters (creative_id, campaign_id, etc.).
- Separation of traffic by streams, depending on the name of the buyer or the name of the application.
- Transfer of your own custom values for distribution between offers, campaigns, or even trackers.
And other various cases, with traffic filtering depending on the metrics that you want to transfer to the tracker.
Small Life Hack
Both filters can work in transit mode, without the need to fill in the Campaign Parameters tab. That is, you can set a filter by the ‘param’ parameter with the value test2.
Leave the Campaign Settings tab unchanged, and if your request contains param=test2, then the tracker will find this parameter, and the filter will work. However, it should be borne in mind that the value of the parameter itself, in this case, will not be written.
This trick is especially useful when you want to filter traffic without writing down the label values or when you suddenly go beyond the limit of the used parameters but still need additional filtering.
Geo-Profiles (List of Countries)
You will find this option under Maintenance – List of countries. It is connected directly with the Country filter. The setting itself includes a grouping of countries according to certain characteristics (e.g., German-speaking, English-speaking, or English-speaking and Europe).
Each group includes a specific list of countries, which you can change at your discretion. Add, for example, the Czech Republic to the North American group, and you have moved the whole continent.
How Can You Use It?
It’s very simple:
- Add a filter by Country:
2. Insert a whole list of countries from the Geo Profile at once:
The main profit here is to create your own Geo Profile (or edit the existing one) and in one click, block/accept a whole list of countries at once instead of manually selecting each country.
This concludes today’s release. We sincerely hope that the KBP section will provide you with not only interesting but also useful information. See you later, and good luck with your work!
