Sub-IDs and sites

Zones tell you where an ad was placed. Sub-IDs and sites tell you where the traffic came from. Together they let publishers judge each traffic source and let advertisers see which sources pay off.

What a sub-ID is

A sub-ID is a short label, up to 100 characters, that a publisher attaches to the traffic on a zone. Publishers typically use one sub-ID per traffic source, per page section or per partner.

Publishers set it on the zone code:

<script async src="https://ulumob.com/serve.js" data-zone="123" data-format="popunder" data-subid="partner-a"></script>

With the direct, VAST or JSON URLs, add it as a parameter:

https://ulumob.com/delivery?zone_id=123&mode=redirect&subid=partner-a

Up to ten extra free-form values can be passed as data-sid1 to data-sid10 (or sid1 to sid10 in the URL). These extra values are passed to advertisers through destination URL macros, but reports group by the main sub-ID only.

What a site is

A site is the website a zone belongs to, shown by its domain. Every zone is created inside one website, so site reports add up all the zones on that domain.

Reading sub-ID and site reports

In the report form, group by Sub-ID or Site, alone or together with date, zone or campaign. Some examples:

Traffic sent without a sub-ID appears on a row labelled (none).

Advertisers see the domain of each site, because that is where their ads ran. Advertisers also see sub-IDs, so publishers should never put personal data or private names in a sub-ID.

Why some combinations are not allowed

Reports come from two summaries:

• A daily summary with country, format, OS, device and ad.
• A traffic-source summary with site and sub-ID.

Both summaries also hold date, zone and campaign, so those can be used with either. But no single summary holds both a sub-ID and a country, so a report cannot combine them.

The rule is: site and sub-ID cannot be combined with country, format, OS, device or ad, as a grouping or as a filter. In the panel, the conflicting buttons are greyed out. Through the API, such a request returns an error with status 422.

To answer a question that seems to need both, split it in two. For example, to see which countries a sub-ID sends, give that source its own zone and filter the daily report by that zone.

For advertisers: targeting by sub-ID and site

You can include or exclude sub-IDs and domains in a campaign's targeting, and keep reusable lists of them at /app/advertiser/lists. A report grouped by sub-ID or zone also lets you block a source in one click. See Blocking sources.

For publishers: using sub-IDs to protect quality

Each traffic source you buy or partner with should have its own sub-ID. When the flagged share or CTR of a zone changes, a sub-ID report shows which source caused it. See Traffic quality rules.