Getting Started

When you run mobile campaigns, boost of new app installs are often one of the main goals. Our easy to install Tracking SDK will enable campaign app installs tracking and reporting in Adform platform without need to deal with 3rd party SDKs and invest tons of time into that.

1. General Info

• Adform-tracking-sdk 2.x supports AndroidX.
  • If you’re not using AndroidX, lowest version that uses ’Android support packages’ is 1.x.
  • All new features will be provided on 2.+
• Versions 2.x and 1.x are vastly different, so don’t forget to make sure you’re following documentation for correct version.
• If you’re upgrading from 1.x to 2.x, read the documentation through, as there are multiple things that are done differently
• Minimal supported version is Android 4.1+ (API 16)

1.1. Plugins

Tracking SDK is also available on these platforms:

• Unity
• Xamarin

2. Setting up library dependencies

• To add a library to the dependencies, first we need to specify repository location. This can be done by editing build.gradle file and by inserting snippet (specified below) right above the android configuration group.

repositories {
    maven { url "https://github.com/adform/adform-tracking-android-sdk/raw/master/releases/" }
}

• Then in the dependency group we need to specify that we will be using AdformTrackingSdk
  • Note: SDK uses AndroidX, so your project should use it as well, or you’ll have to use older version.

dependencies {
    implementation "com.adform.tracking.sdk:adform-tracking-sdk:2.0.2"
}

3. Update AndroidManifest.xml

• Add Google GMS service ID .
  • Make sure you’re using your own ID here
  • To add - update AndroidManifest.xml with snipped shown below between <application></application> tags.
  • Find more info: Google ad manager docs

<!--Sample app ID-->
<meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID"
    android:value="ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713"/>

Now you are set to use sdk.

Basic integration

Start tracking

To start tracking, you need to run startTracking method. Note that Tracking_ID should be replaced with your tracking id.

AdformTrackingSdk.startTracking(this, Tracking_ID);

A good place to put it is Activity/Fragment onCreate() method. Alternatively this can also be done in Application class, as this method should be started only once and will not take any affect when running multiple times.

Also, AdformTrackingSdk needs methods that would indicate of application activity, such as onResume and onPause.

Note that an old method onStop was deprecated and will not be used in the future, so it should be deleted if it was used before.

@Override
protected void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    AdformTrackingSdk.onResume(this);
}

@Override
protected void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    AdformTrackingSdk.onPause();
}

• Optionally you can set custom application name and custom variables before calling startTracking:.

AdformTrackingSdk.setAppName("Custom app name");

Order order = new Order();
order.setCurrency("currency");
order.setOrderStatus("order status");
order.setEmail("email");
order.setOrderId("order id");

// You can also set other custom variables.
order.addCustomValue(1, "var1 value"); //Set index (1-10) of custom variable and value
order.addSystemValue(5, "sv5 value"); //Set index (1-89) of system variable and value
order.addNumericValue(3, 45.4); //Set index (1 or 2) of numeric system variable and value (numeric format)

AdformTrackingSdk.setOrder(order);

AdformTrackingSdk.startTracking(this, Tracking_ID);

Sending custom app events

To create an event, first you need to create a TrackPoint with Tracking_ID. Note that startTracking should occur before event sending.

TrackPoint trackPoint = new TrackPoint(Tracking_ID);

Also some advanced integrations are available, like custom variables or using custom application name setting.

• Setting custom application name:

trackPoint.setAppName("custom application name");

• In order to send custom variables you need to create Order object and set your order values. When defining variables it’s required to keep in mind, that there are different type of variables:
  • Custom variables with predefined names (orderid, currency, firstname, etc.)
  • Custom variables (var1-var10)
  • System variables (sv1-sv89)
  • Numeric system variables (svn1, svn2)

Order order = new Order();
order.setCurrency("currency");
order.setOrderStatus("order status");
order.setEmail("email");
order.setFirstName("name");
order.setLastName("last name");
order.setAddress1("address 1");
order.setAddress2("address 2");
order.setPhone("phone");
order.setBasketSize(7); //numeric format
order.setZip("zip");
order.setCountry("country");
order.setAgeGroup("age group");
order.setGender("gender");
order.setOrderId("order id");
order.setSale(44.54); //numeric format

// You can also set other custom variables.
order.addCustomValue(1, "var1 value"); //Set index (1-10) of custom variable and value
order.addSystemValue(5, "sv5 value"); //Set index (1-89) of system variable and value
order.addNumericValue(3, 45.4); //Set index (1 or 2) of numeric system variable and value (numeric format)

//Set created order for the trackpoint
trackPoint.setOrder(order);

• Setting custom tracking point name:

trackPoint.setSectionName("Tracking point name");

To send prepared track point, just use sendTrackPoint.

AdformTrackingSdk.sendTrackPoint(trackPoint);

Also it is posible to send additional product variables information with tracking points. To do so you need to create ’ProductItem’ object and set your product values. Then add that object to the trackpoint.

ProductItem productItem = new ProductItem();
productItem.setProductId("Product ID");
productItem.setProductName("Product name");
productItem.setCategoryId("Category ID");
productItem.setCategoryName("Category name");
productItem.setProductCount("Product count");
productItem.setProductSales("Product sales");
productItem.setWeight("Weight");
productItem.setStep("Step");
productItem.setCustom("Custom information");

TrackPoint trackPoint = new TrackPoint(Tracking_ID);
trackPoint.addProductItem(productItem);

To send multiple product variables with same tracking point, you can use such code:

ProductItem productItem1 = new ProductItem();
productItem1.setProductId("Product ID");
productItem1.setProductName("Product name");
productItem1.setCategoryId("Category ID");
productItem1.setCategoryName("Category name");
productItem1.setProductCount(1);
productItem1.setProductSales(1D);
productItem1.setWeight(1);
productItem1.setStep(Byte.MIN_VALUE);
productItem1.setCustom("Custom information");

ProductItem productItem2 = new ProductItem();
productItem2.setProductId("Product ID");
productItem2.setProductName("Product name");
productItem2.setCategoryId("Category ID");
productItem2.setCategoryName("Category name");
productItem2.setProductCount(1);
productItem2.setProductSales(1D);
productItem2.setWeight(1);
productItem2.setStep(Byte.MIN_VALUE);
productItem2.setCustom("Custom information");

TrackPoint trackPoint = new TrackPoint(Tracking_ID);
trackPoint.addProductItem(productItem1);
trackPoint.addProductItem(productItem2);

Custom Adform Tracking SDK implementations

Enable/Disable tracking

You can enable/disable tracking by calling setEnabled(boolean) method.

AdformTrackingSdk.setEnabled(true);

Enable/Disable HTTPS

You can enable/disable HTTPS protocol by calling setHttpsEnabled(boolean) method. By default HTTPS is enabled.

AdformTrackingSdk.setHttpsEnabled(true);

Enable/Disable SIM card state tracking

You can enable/disable tracking by calling setSendSimCardStateEnabled(boolean) method. By default SIM card state tracking is disabled.

AdformTrackingSdk.setSendSimCardStateEnabled(true);

Enable/Disable Facebook attribution id tracking

You can enable/disable tracking by calling setFacebookAttributionIdTrackingEnabled(boolean) method. By default facebook attribution id tracking is enabled.

AdformTrackingSdk.setFacebookAttributionIdTrackingEnabled(false);

GDPR

By default Adform Tracking SDK will check CMP settings and use that information. More information about this here

It is possible to set GDPR and GDPR consent manually. You need to use setGdpr(boolean) and setGdprConsent(consent) methods. For Gdpr consent you need to set base64-encoded string.

AdformTrackingSdk.setGdpr(true);
AdformTrackingSdk.setGdprConsent(Base64.encodeToString("GgdprConsent".getBytes(), Base64.NO_WRAP));

Set user agent

You can change webview user agent string. Webview is used to send tracking data.

AdformTrackingSdk.setUserAgent("Custom User Agent");

Send information to multiple clients

It is possible to send tracking information to multiple clients by defining each client Tracking id.

In order to start tracking, please use an example below:

AdformTrackingSdk.startTracking(this, Tracking_ID1, Tracking_ID2, Tracking_ID3, ...);

To send custom tracking points for multiple clients, use the following example:

MultipleTrackPointsBuilder multipleTrackPointsBuilder = new MultipleTrackPointsBuilder();

multipleTrackPointsBuilder
    .setAppName("App name")
    .setSectionName("Section name");
    .setOrder(yourOrder);

TrackPoint[] trackPoints = multipleTrackPointsBuilder.generateTrackPoints(Tracking_ID1, Tracking_ID2, Tracking_ID3, ...);

AdformTrackingSdk.sendTrackPoints(trackPoints);

Migration guide

Upgrading to 1.1

In SDK version 1.1 was added functionality, which requires additional changes during update from older versions:

• Method setParameters() of TrackPoint class has been deprecated. Instead please use setOrder() method to set custom variables to tracking points.
• Add Protobuf library. You could find how to do that here

Publishing events using Adobe experience SDK

Track marketing events for Adform platform using Adobe experience SDK

• Steps how to integrate Adform-Adobe extension can be found here