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Tracking Costs

Voluum can track cost information with an automatic or a manual method and store it in the platform.

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  • Auto: With this option enabled, Voluum captures a value passed in a traffic source's payout token and matches it with Voluum's cost variable. In this scenario, Voluum only reads what is being passed to it.

  • Manual: When your traffic source platform does not support passing cost information, you can select an appropriate cost model and provide a fixed value. In this scenario, Voluum will actually count costs every time an event related to the selected cost model occurs.

  • Integrated: The cost information can be passed using a reliable API integration thanks to the Automizer feature. Read the Automizer article to learn more.

Caution

Voluum Note: The sources of the cost information are marked in Voluum with icons. To get a detailed description of what these icons mean, read the Cost sources article.

Set up Tracking Cost in Voluum

Setting up cost tracking is available in a campaign creation form. To get there, perform the following steps:

Note

Voluum Info: With the automatic option you will have to additionally go to the traffic source element set to match the cost parameter name and token with the Voluum variable. This is described in the last section of this article.

  1. In Voluum, go to the Campaigns tab. The Campaigns view will appear.

  2. Edit an existing campaign or create a new one. The Edit campaign / New campaign form will appear.

  3. If you are creating a new campaign, select a traffic source from the Traffic source drop-down menu. Cost settings will not be visible without a traffic source selected.

Click on the cost models below to learn more about setting up tracking costs in Voluum.

In this section:

A token is used to pass a dynamic information in a redirection link or a postback URL. Tokens are described by parameters. Each entity, such as traffic source or affiliate network, use specific tokens. Available Voluum tokens are always displayed when you are building a redirection link.

An event is a specific user statistic recorded for an active Voluum campaign. There are different types of events: an impression (when an ad is viewed by the user), a visit (when the user goes to a landing page), a click (when the user goes to an offer) and a conversion (when the user buys an offer). Note that when direct-linking is used and the user goes directly to an offer, such event is classified as a visit. Voluum's pricing plans include different limits of billed events, that can be tracked without additional charges. Impressions are not billed by Voluum, meaning that they do not deplete your pricing plan's limit. Events that surpass the limit are called overages events and they are charged separately.

Return of investment is a main indicator of the profitability of your campaign. It shows the percentage of the money you earned as a fraction of the money you have invested.

  • ROI == 0%:  it means that you neither have lost or earned any money

  • ROI >> 0%: it means that you have earned money. For example, if ROI == 150%, you have earned 50% more money that you have invested in running your campaigns.

  • If ROI << 0%: it means that you have spent more money than you have earned.

Return on investment (%) = (Total revenue ($) - Total cost ($) ) / Total cost ($) * 100%

You can find this indicator in the ROI column in Voluum.