General definition is “carry by or as if by means of a piggyback” – In phrase: “I’ll piggyback you the rest of the way”. This means a support or a help to surpass to reach your destination.

Definition of piggyback in terms of Advertising:

It refers to the use of a single container tag (also called universal or master tag) which redirects to other additional tags that are not placed directly on the site. Basically it’s a technique by which the actual tag fires without directly implementing on the page which ensures there is no data stolen from the client site maintaining the security.

General Example to understand piggyback concept:

  • Using someone’s shoulder to achieve something (raw example)
  • Embedding the names of popular brands or companies into the hidden meta-data of a Web page in order to rank high up on a search engine’s results page
  • Gaining access to a restricted communications channel by using the session another user already established.
  • Reaching to a destination with someone’s help (hidden)

Live example of piggybacking:

Here Container tag is of ATLAS, where the pixel tagged are of Tribal Fusion, MathTag and Turn.

function AT_tags(){

    try{

        var tags =newArray();

        var imgs =newArray();

        tags =[‘https://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=xxxxxx&mt_adid=xxxxxx&v1=&v2=&v3=&s1=&s2=&s3=’,’http://a.tribalfusion.com/i.cid?c=xxxxxx&d=00&page=landingPage’,’http://d.turn.com/r/dft/id/Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx’];

        for(var i =0; i < tags.length; i++){

            imgs[i]=newImage();

            imgs[i].src = tags[i];

        }

        this.csk =’Test’;

    }catch(e){

        this.csk =’Error’;

    }

}

Scenario: We need to place publisher pixel on client’s LP for optimization or say retargeting but client is not allowing to implement the third party pixels due to global or security reasons

Solution: We can piggyback the publisher pixels like you can see in the above code for Tribal, Turn or mathtag pixel within an atlas container code

Result: Cookie pool is being formed at publisher end, thereby they can optimize and retarget the interested users. Client is also happy as they were not asked to put the pixels directly on the site

This is all about piggybacking!

Quick Points on piggybacking:

 1.It’s a technique which helps in retargeting the users
 2.This is done by adding the actual action tag on a container tag which is then implemented on the client page
 3.The implementation is same as normal tagging
 4.This ensures security of data, publisher won’t be able to steal data from client page i.e. user’s pool, etc.

Piggyback Marketing

Sometimes, two or more companies form a marketing strategy where they represent each other products to their target users. This is called piggyback marketing!

14 thoughts on “What is Piggybacking?”

  1. Does anyoen an web tool to check piggybacking online?

    I know that Ensighten is quite strong here, but a quick free tool would be prefered. 🙂

  2. How to remove Piggybacking tags which is initiated by some tag that is configured from GTM. If we remove the tag from GTM, all those piggybacking tags which are loaded via this GTM tag will be removed from the website?

    Ex: If I’ve configured LiveRamp tag via GTM and there are many piggybacking tags which are loaded via LiveRamp. In this case, if I remove LiveRamp tag from GTM, whether all those Piggybacking tags which are loading via LiveRamp also be removed when the site loads?

    1. Hi Anitha,

      Obviously yes since those tags are piggybacked on the main tag which is LiveRamp, all these things depend on how the configuration has been done. Piggybacking = using someone’s shoulder since directly the tag can’t be implemented so if the shoulder is removed, whatever was aligned on the shoulder will fall.

      The best way to see the result is just inactive the liveramp tag was 1 minute and check the firing on the landing page using Fiddler or Httpfox and see if the other tags which were piggybacked are firing or not. If not, you will get the answer. If yes, do let us know. We will check the implementation and will let you know in detail.

      Regards,
      kOA

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