Airtory respondent sources turn a display ad into the start of your survey. The first questions appear directly inside the interactive ad unit; once the respondent finishes those questions, the answers are logged into the MX8 Platform. If the survey has more questions, the respondent can click the final image in the ad to continue and complete the rest of the survey on the web.
This source is useful when you want to intercept respondents in their normal browsing flow rather than send them through a panel, and when you want short questions (typically demographics or a single screener) to be answered without ever leaving the ad.
It is also a good fit for brand lift studies. Because the ad unit identifies who has seen the creative, you can retarget that exposed audience with a follow-up survey and compare their answers to a control group that did not see the ad — the standard methodology for measuring lift in awareness, consideration, or intent.
How the integration works
Setting up an Airtory source is a two-system workflow, and it helps to know upfront which steps happen where:
- In the MX8 Platform, you create the respondent source. You provide your Airtory API key, the image URLs and brand colors you want the ad unit to use, and pick which survey questions should be asked inside the ad. When you save the source, the platform calls Airtory's API and automatically creates the creative for you in Airtory Studio — already wired up to the right MX8 endpoints, with your branding and your in-ad questions.
- In Airtory Studio, you finish the trafficking work that the platform cannot do for you: you add the macros that pass the respondent ID and any other DSP-supplied values into the creative, set up your placements for the buyers and inventory you want to target, and export the tag for whoever is trafficking the campaign.
You do not build the creative twice. The platform owns the creative's content (questions, images, colors) and Airtory owns its distribution (macros, placements, tags).
What you need before you set up
Before you create the source, make sure the following are in place. Most of the work here is gathering image assets — once those are ready, the rest of the setup takes only a few minutes.
Account access
- Advanced respondent sources must be enabled in your MX8 account.
- You need an Airtory account and an Airtory API key with permission to create creatives and campaigns.
Image assets
You need three images. Each one should be hosted somewhere Airtory can reach — either on a public URL on the internet, or uploaded to Airtory as an account asset (the easiest option, since Airtory then serves them from its own CDN). Pick whichever standard display size matches the placements you intend to buy — the platform supports 300×250, 300×600, and 320×480, with 300×600 being the most common. All three images should be sized to the same dimensions as the creative.
- A background image, shown behind every question while the respondent is answering inside the ad unit. This is the visual frame for the in-ad survey, so it should be branded and leave room in the layout for the question text and answer options to render on top of it.
- A thank you card, shown after the in-ad questions are complete. This image needs to encourage the respondent to click out of the ad and finish the rest of the survey on the web — make the call to action clear and obvious, since the click-through on this image is what carries the respondent into the platform.
- A fallback image, shown in the unexpected case that the respondent's browser does not have JavaScript enabled and the interactive creative cannot run. A static branded image is fine here; it is rarely seen but Airtory requires it.
The platform ships defaults for all three images so you can preview the flow end-to-end, but the defaults are unbranded placeholders. Replace them with your own assets before going live.
Decisions to make
- The brand colors the ad unit should use (background, primary accent, button, question, and option colors).
- Which survey questions you want answered inside the ad unit — typically demographics or a single screener. Anything not asked in the ad will be asked after the click-through.
- Which respondent ID macro your ad server populates. The platform uses this to identify each impression so that in-ad answers and post-click answers stitch into a single response. Device ID is preferred if your ad server supports it, since it gives you a stable identifier you can use for retargeting in brand lift studies. Cachebusters is a reasonable alternative if device ID is not available.
Step 1: Create a new Airtory source
Go to Sources, click Add respondent source, and choose Airtory from the audience type list. You will see the standard fields for any respondent source — name, target responses, days in field, market, default language, domain, and price — followed by an Airtory Creative section.
Fill in the Airtory-specific fields:
| Field (UX label) | What to enter | Required |
|---|---|---|
| API key | Your Airtory API key. Stored as an encrypted sidecar secret. | Required on create, optional on update |
| Advertiser | The advertiser the creative belongs to in Airtory. | Yes |
| Campaign type | The Airtory campaign type — currently Display. | Yes |
| Creative size | The dimensions of the ad unit. Choose 300×250, 300×600, or 320×480 to match the placements you plan to buy. Your background, thank you card, and fallback images should all be sized to match this. | Yes |
| Start date | ISO-8601 date string sent to Airtory as the campaign start. | Optional |
| End date | ISO-8601 date string sent to Airtory as the campaign end. | Optional |
| Creative name | The name of the creative inside Airtory. Defaults to the audience name. | Optional |
| Respondent ID macro | Which Airtory macro the platform should use to identify each impression. Choose Device ID if your ad server supports it (preferred — gives you a stable ID for retargeting), otherwise choose Cachebusters. | Yes |
| Background URL | URL of the background image that the in-ad questions render on top of. | Yes |
| Thank you card URL | URL of the final image shown after the in-ad questions. The respondent clicks this image to continue the survey on the web. | Yes |
| Fallback image URL | URL of the static image shown when the interactive creative cannot run (for example, in non-JavaScript browsers). | Yes |
| Background color | Hex color used behind the creative. | Yes |
| Primary brand color | Hex color used for the primary brand accent. | Yes |
| Next button background color | Hex color of the next button's background. | Yes |
| Next button text color | Hex color of the next button's label. | Yes |
| Next button text | The label shown on the next button (default: Next). | Yes |
| Question color | Hex color of the question text. | Yes |
| Option color | Hex color of the answer option text. | Yes |
The platform pre-fills every URL and color field with a default so the form will save and preview without further input, but the defaults are not suitable for production. Swap in your own image URLs and brand colors before launching.
Step 2: Choose the questions to include in the ad unit
After saving the source, open it again to choose which survey questions are asked inside the ad unit. The Auto-filled questions panel lists the questions in the survey that are eligible for in-ad capture. Toggle on each question you want the ad unit to ask.
Keep this list short. The ad unit is a small surface and respondents are unlikely to answer many questions before clicking through, so we recommend limiting in-ad questions to demographics or a single screening question. Anything not toggled on stays in the platform and is asked after the respondent clicks the final image.
Step 3: Set up placements and macros in Airtory
When you save the source, the platform automatically creates the creative inside Airtory Studio using your API key, branding, image URLs, and chosen in-ad questions. You do not need to build a creative in Airtory yourself — it is already there, already pointed at the right MX8 endpoints, and already populated with your questions. From this point on, the rest of the work happens inside Airtory Studio:
In Airtory Studio:
- Open the creative the platform just created and confirm the in-ad preview matches what you expect — background, colors, and the first survey question should all render correctly.
- Add the macros required by the placement. At minimum, the respondent ID macro you chose in the platform (Device ID or Cachebusters) needs to be wired up here so that each impression carries an identifier through to MX8. Add any other DSP-supplied macros you need at the same time (for example, click and impression macros).
- Configure your placements for the buyers and inventory you want to target.
- Copy the Tag or Ins Tag from the export panel and send it to whoever is trafficking the campaign.
You do not need to come back to the platform to wire any of this up — once the macros and placements are set up in Airtory, completed in-ad surveys will be logged against this respondent source as soon as the campaign starts serving, and click-throughs from the thank you card will land in the rest of the survey.
Reporting
Reporting for Airtory sources works the same way as for any other respondent source. In-ad answers and answers given after the click-through are stitched into a single response per respondent, so standard reports, crosstabs, and data exports work with no extra configuration.