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VAST macros / Identity and privacy

[PAGEURL] VAST macro

Short answer: The full URL of the page where the ad is displayed, percent-encoded. Introduced in VAST 4.1.

What it means

Resolves to the page URL on which the player is embedded. The player percent-encodes it, because the value is itself a URL placed inside another URL.

Example value

After the player substitutes the macro, [PAGEURL] becomes something like:

https%3A%2F%2Fnews.example.com%2Fstory%3Fid%3D42

Before and after the player substitutes it

The first line is the URL in the tag. The second line is the request the player sends once it has a value.

https://t.example.com/i?page=[PAGEURL]&cb=[CACHEBUSTING]
https://t.example.com/i?page=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.example.com%2Fstory%3Fid%3D42&cb=847291

The full document address, encoded

[PAGEURL] resolves to the URL of the page the player is embedded in, percent-encoded, because that value is itself a URL sitting inside another URL. VAST 4.1 added the macro. A question mark, ampersand, or slash in the page address has to become %3F, %26, and %2F. If the log shows a raw :// or a second ? the player inserted the address without encoding, and every parameter after it parsed as part of the page value or as a new parameter.

[DOMAIN] is only the host. Use that when the pixel needs a site. Use [PAGEURL] when the log has to point at the article, including path and query. They are not interchangeable, and a report that says the page was example.com has thrown away the path.

Players that have no page

A browser can supply a document URL. An in-app player and a connected-TV player usually cannot. The macro is then empty, or the token is left as written, depending on the player. Neither result is a page. The identifier for those environments is [APPBUNDLE]: a package name, a store id, or a channel id.

Putting [PAGEURL] on a CTV impression and treating an empty parameter as unknown web inventory mis-files the device. If the same tag runs on web and on CTV, branch the pixel or accept that the parameter is web-only. [APPBUNDLE] on a web page is the mirror problem: there is no bundle.

A value that breaks the query string

This is what an unencoded substitution does to a URL that also carries a cache buster. The page query eats the rest of the string.

The player was supposed to send page=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.example.com%2Fstory%3Fid%3D42 and cb as its own parameter.

https://t.example.com/i?page=https://news.example.com/story?id=42&cb=847291

Where it is valid

Impression, tracking, and click URLs in a browser. In-app and connected TV players often have no page URL, and then the macro is empty.

Macros are case-sensitive and substituted only inside URL fields. A macro written in the wrong case, or placed where it has no defined value, is sent to the server as literal text instead of a value.

Using it in a tag

<Impression><![CDATA[https://t.example.com/i?page=[PAGEURL]]]></Impression>

VAST XML fragment only. This excerpt belongs inside a complete VAST document, so standalone validation will fail until it is wrapped in a full <VAST>response.

Related vastlint rules

Related macros

Validate your macros

vastlint flags unknown, mis-cased, deprecated, out-of-context, and unencoded macros in any tracking, click, error, impression, or media URL:

# CLI: exits non-zero on errors, ideal for pipelines
vastlint check creative.xml

Use the right tool for this failure

If you already have the resolved XML, run a pure spec check. If you only have a live tag URL, test that endpoint first. If the failure happens in the wrapper chain, inspect each hop.

Validate this XML →Test this live URL →Inspect this wrapper chain →

Further reading