---
title: "Email ad codes on a site"
description: "The script-free email tag — what the generated image-plus-link markup contains and how it counts impressions and clicks — and the site-level Email ad tags dialog that mails placement tags to recipients."
type: "howto"
audience: [network-manager, admin]
keywords: [email code, email tag, newsletter, impression pixel, click link, rand, email invocation codes, send codes by email]
ui_path: "Account → Publishers → site → Actions → Email ad tags"
---
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/llms.txt. Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. Append .md to any documentation page URL to get its markdown version.
# Email ad codes on a site
Email inventory can't run scripts, so its ad code is the simplest tag the platform generates:
a click link wrapping an image. This page covers what that generated markup actually contains
and how it tracks, plus the site-level **Email ad tags** dialog — the tool that mails
any placement's tags (email or otherwise) straight to the people who will paste them.
## Who this is for
Publishers with newsletter inventory and network managers handing tags to site owners. Reading a
tag from the placement editor needs only view access on the site; the site-level mailing dialog
needs the **Email Invocation Codes** permission and an editable site — see
[Per-role notes](#per-role-notes).
## Prerequisites
- A saved **Email placement** under the site — creating one and its basic fields are covered
in [Application, email and click-through placements](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/placement-mobile-email-other.md).
- For the mailing dialog: your network must have the *Send invocation code* email template
configured — without it the Actions entry does not exist at all.
## Steps
### Mailing tags from the site: Email ad tags
The site editor's header **Actions → Email ad tags** opens a mailing dialog that
covers *all* the site's placements, not just email ones:
1. Open **Account → Publishers → site → Actions → Email ad tags**. The dialog is titled **Ad tag
mailing settings**, and the grid's first column is headed **Publisher/Zone/Placement**.
2. The dialog shows the site's **zone → placement tree as a grid**: one row per placement,
one checkbox column per tag type. A checkbox renders only where the tag type applies to
that placement's type, and each placement's default tag type comes pre-checked. **Select
all / Deselect all** work across the whole tree.
3. Fill the mailing fields: **Emails(comma separated)** (pre-filled with the site's contact email,
or the site owners' emails when it has none). **From** is read-only: the mail always goes out
from your own account's address. Under **More details**, **Subject** and **HTML Body** arrive
pre-filled from the *Send invocation code* template; edit them to send something custom.
4. Choose the packaging: with **Send as a single file** on (the default) all selected codes go into
one `.txt` attachment separated by per-placement comment headers; off, each placement×tag-type
pair becomes its own `.txt` attachment.
5. Click **Send**. Each recipient gets their own email built from the network's *Send
invocation code* template.
## What the generated email code contains
The Email tab of the placement's **Ad tags & API** card generates exactly this markup (domain
and key filled in for your placement):
```html
```
- The **`![]()
` is the impression request**: when the mail client fetches it, the ad server
picks a banner for the placement, logs a CPM impression and redirects to the creative's
image file. If nothing is eligible to serve, it returns a transparent 1×1 PNG so the email
never shows a broken image.
- The **`` is the click link**: it logs the click and redirects to the click-through URL
of the *same* banner the image showed (see how below).
- **`rand=` is a placeholder you must fill** — replace it with a value
unique per sent email (a merge tag / message id from your sending platform). Both URLs must
carry the *same* value within one email.
- The serving domain comes from the placement's **Domain** selection (falling back to the
site's serving domain) and is always `https`.
The same two URLs appear separately as the read-only **Creative URL** and **Landing page URL**
fields — directly under the code block on that same **Email** tab, not on the Basic info card.
> **Corner case:** the snippet also carries a `$allDefaultUrlParams` token on **both** URLs, right
> after the `rand` value. It resolves to whatever default tag parameters the placement carries
> (channel, custom parameters, click, the pass-through privacy signals from the **Settings** tab),
> so it is empty on a fresh placement and not empty the moment someone adds a default. If you keep
> a copy of the tag somewhere, re-copy it after changing those defaults.
## How impression and click stay in sync
The `rand` value is the glue: on the image fetch the server remembers "placement + this rand
→ banner X" for 24 hours; the click with the same rand looks that pairing up and redirects to
banner X's landing page. Without it, the click would re-run banner selection and could send
the reader to a different advertiser than the one whose creative they saw.
## Corner cases and gotchas
> **Corner case:** if you leave `` literally in the sent email, every
> recipient shares one pairing key — the first image fetch fixes the banner, and everyone's
> clicks resolve against whatever banner was cached last. Stats still count, but click
> attribution across recipients becomes meaningless. Always substitute a unique value.
> **Corner case:** the impression→click pairing lives for **24 hours** after the last image
> fetch. A reader who opens the email today and clicks next week triggers a fresh lookup: the
> click cannot resolve the shown banner and the link goes nowhere. Reopening the email
> (re-fetching the image) refreshes the pairing.
> **Corner case:** the generated markup uses the short `/adml` and `/admlclck` paths. These
> are the legacy aliases of `/ads-mail` and `/ads-mail-click` — both stay mapped precisely
> because emails already sent can never be updated. The same logic applies to the serving
> domain: never retire a domain used in sent newsletters.
> **Corner case:** the **Email ad tags** entry disappears entirely when the network
> has no *Send invocation code* email template — this is a network-level configuration, not a
> permission. If an admin expects the action and it's missing, check the email templates
> before checking Roles.
> **Corner case:** sending with **nothing ticked "succeeds" and mails nothing**. The dialog only
> validates the From and recipient addresses, and the server only does any work when the selection
> is non-empty — so the dialog closes on a success that never produced an email. Check that at
> least one checkbox is ticked before you click Send.
> **Corner case:** the send is **permission-filtered per tag type on the server**: a tag type
> you ticked but have no permission for is silently skipped from the sent mail — no error,
> the email just lacks that attachment/section. Deleted placements are skipped the same way.
> **Corner case:** every ticked placement must be on a site you can **view**. If one is not,
> nothing is sent at all and the dialog reports a permission error — the check is not per
> placement.
## Over the API
The same listing and mailing are available under `/rest-api`; both need view access to the site
(all inventory, or a share on this site).
- `GET /rest-api/sites/{siteId}/invocation-codes.do` lists the site's live placements, zone by zone:
`{success, total, data: [{zoneId, zoneName, placementId, placementName, placementType,
codeTypes}]}`. `codeTypes` is what *you* may generate for that placement — the tag types its
placement type offers, minus those your role lacks the per-type permission for. Page with
`start` (default 0) and `limit` (1–1000, default 50). A deleted or missing site is `404`.
- `POST /rest-api/sites/{siteId}/invocation-codes/send.do` mails them. Parameters: `emails`
(repeat it, 1–20 addresses), `placementInvocationCodes[]` (the tag types to send
for that placement, e.g. `placementInvocationCodes[4001]=AJAX,DIRECT_URL`), and optionally
`subject`, `body`, `singleFile` (default `true`) and `bccAuthor`. The response is
`{success, recipients}`.
The API is stricter than the dialog about what it will send: a placement of another site or a
tag type you cannot generate is a `400` rather than a silent skip, and a missing or deleted
placement is a `404`. On a network with a *Send invocation code* template, `subject` and
`body` replace the template's own. A network with no such template still mails the codes when
the call sends both `subject` and `body` — a plain message with the codes attached; without
them it answers `400`, where the dialog simply is not offered. There is no `from` parameter — like the dialog, the mail always goes out from the
calling user's address. Each send is recorded in the action log.
## Per-role notes
- **Publisher** — copies the email code from the placement's **Email** tab; the site-level **Email
ad tags** dialog needs *Email Invocation Codes* — ask your network admin.
- **Network manager** — also gets **Actions → Email ad tags** when the role holds that permission
and the network has the template.
- **Administrator** — configures the *Send invocation code* template; without it nobody sees the
action.
- **Can View share** — no mailing dialog; the Email tab and its URLs stay copyable.
Exact grants: see [User roles](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/users-and-roles.md).
## Related
- [Create and edit a site](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/sites.md)
- [Application, email and click-through placements](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/placement-mobile-email-other.md)
- [Ad tags, invocation codes and the API](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/ad-tags-and-api.md)
- [Invocation code types](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/reference/invocation-codes.md)
- [Sell ads in an email newsletter](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/use-cases/email-newsletter-ads.md)