Dynamic URL in a swf file

Hope this the right forum for this

I'm making some Flash ads that will used for this companies affiliate ad program. There needs to be a dynamic URL inserted into it so when a person clicks on it from another web page, all the tracking can be done (standard affiliate ad tracking)

Thing is, I'm not much of an action scripter so I wouldn't even know where to start. I've done some web searches, didn't see much that covered this. This seems like it should be fairly common - using swf files for affiliate ad campaigns. The programmer here can code about anything - except action script.

Anybody have any ideas or where I might find this info?

So to clarify, anytime said flash add is clicked you want it to send a peice of data about the flash file to a database through asp/php to track the number of clicks?

There are a couple of ways to do this...let me know if I am understanding the question

Well, kinda. When a person signs up for as an affiliate ad, a custom url will be generated, so when that ad is clicked on thier site, we'd know who's ad it is so we can pay them the money for the click through.

With a standard banner ad, we'd just wrap the image in the dynamic URL. But with using a swf, we need to somehow embed that url into the swf file code

I've never done this before, but I have a couple of ideas of how this "might work"...

Can I get an example of what this dynamic url would look like? If it needs to be sent on the "click" of a mouse that is fairly easily accomplished.

Not quite sure what it would look like, but think of it this way. We have the one swf file. When one person clicks on it, it goes to www.site1.htm. When person 2 clicks on it, it goes to www.site2.html

So, we won't be setting the get url in the fla, because for each time someone gets this swf file, it'll get a new url

so, basicaly, we just need to change out the url each time someone signs up to put this ad on thier page

Ahhh!!!!! That makes much more sense, I know a solution - I have to hop into MBA class for a few, I'll respond a bit later.

Cheers,

Scott

See if this concept makes sense for your programmer...

You can actually include variables on the HTML page that the flash can view, read, and use for different things. This isn't all the embed code needed just the two lines of what it would look like.

The code would look something like this:

Code: Select all

<param name="flashvars" value= "urlcode=http://testsite.com?s38HbdJ7H" />
<embed src="banner.swf" fashvars = " flashvars" value= "urlcode=http://testsite.com?s38HbdJ7H" />

Then you can use the generic urlcode variable inside of the flash file if needed. You can take this to the next level and set urlcode = "variable" which is a variable pulled from somewhere on the page or the form they use to sign up for the banner. Make sense?

Also, the location of the banner in the embed source can have query strings it and be dynamic well. (aka: banner.swf could be banner.swf?h7yshdgw8sgfr) something to think about.

Do either of these things help spark ideas?

Sounds like that would work. I'll ask our programer this morning when I get. Thanks!

Cool, let me know what they say - always willing to brainstorm some more ideas.

Cheers,

Scott