Click-based vs. Impression-based Touchpoints
Last updated
Last updated
The customer journey consists of various touchpoints – moments when the customer interacts with the brand. The Roivenue AI Data Driven model assigns credit to each touchpoint based on its contribution to the final conversion. When calculating this credit, the model considers various attributes of each touchpoint, including the channel through which the interaction occurred, the timing of the interaction, or whether it was an ad impression or a click on the advertisement.
The following text explains the difference between impression-based and click-based touchpoints in attribution modeling. We also explain the difference between Roivenue Synthetic Impressions and the standard impressions tracked by Roivenue Measurement Pixel for impression-based touchpoints.
Impressions represent touchpoints within a customer journey where users view ads or content without clicking. Despite the absence of direct action, these moments still influence decision-making and contribute to conversion. Impression-based touchpoints happen whenever your ad content appears on a user’s screen – whether in display ads, video ads, or anywhere else.
While impression-based touchpoints do not involve user interaction, they are fundamental to the early stages of the customer journey. By increasing the visibility of your brand, product, or service, impressions help plant the seed of awareness that can lead to engagement later in the journey. These touchpoints often act as a form of passive exposure, where users become familiar with your brand, even if they don't immediately click on the ad or take further action.
Roivenue measures impressions using two methods: Pixel-tracked impressions and Synthetic impressions. Pixel-tracked impressions are recorded using tracking pixels in environments where this is possible. Synthetic impressions are used in cases where pixel tracking isn't available, such as in Walled Gardens, ensuring that all touchpoints are captured accurately.
Impressions are tracked across ad platforms whenever an ad is displayed to a user, regardless of interaction. This tracking typically occurs via embedded pixels or tags within the ad creative, which send a signal back to the platform when the ad is rendered on the user’s screen. The recorded impressions provide insight into how often an ad was shown, contributing to metrics like reach and frequency. However, third-party tracking pixels are blocked on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest, limiting the external validation of these impressions. Roivenue addresses this by Synthetic Impressions.
Platforms like Meta, Snap, and Pinterest create "Walled Gardens" by preventing third-party pixels from tracking the impressions served through their ad platforms. This limits marketers' ability to track and analyze ad performance outside of the platform's reporting, forcing them to rely on potentially inflated metrics and double-counted conversions provided by these platforms. As a result, marketers often face a dilemma: platform-specific reporting tends to overestimate performance, while tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) significantly undervalue these platforms because web analytics do not typically account for ads' post-view effects.
Double-counted (multi-counted) conversions refer to the situation where multiple platforms claim credit for the same conversion. This can lead to multiple platforms taking full credit for a single conversion, resulting in inflated performance metrics.
To solve this, Roivenue collects hourly data about post-view conversions from ad platforms, which are then matched with the conversions tracked by Roivenue Measurement. When both systems report the same conversion, Roivenue generates a Synthetic Impression within the existing customer journey. For example, suppose Meta claims credit for a conversion. This indicates that a Meta impression must have been served to the user, so a corresponding Synthetic Impression is added to the journey. In cases where multiple walled garden platforms claim the same conversion, a Synthetic Impression is created for each platform to construct a complete and accurate customer journey.
This approach ensures marketers have a more accurate and unbiased view of their campaigns, bridging the gap between overestimated in-platform metrics and the underestimation of traditional analytics tools.
Click-based touchpoints in the Roivenue product refer to moments when a user visits a website after a paid click or an organic website visit. Instead of tracking the actual click on the ad, Roivenue tracks the visit to the website using standard URL parameters (UTMs) that connect the visit back to the campaign.
Unlike impression-based touchpoints, which measure passive exposure, click-based touchpoints provide insight into active engagement. When a user clicks on an ad, whether it’s an image, video text, or link, they demonstrate interest in the content. Essentially, a click means the ad resonated with the user enough to drive them to interact.
Click-through rate (CTR) is a key metric used to measure how effectively an ad generates engagement. It represents the percentage of people who clicked on your ad compared to the number of people who saw it. The formula for calculating CTR is:
CTR provides important insight into how compelling and relevant your ad is to your target audience. A higher CTR means that a significant portion of users who see your ad find it engaging enough to click on it, whereas a lower CTR suggests that your ad may not be capturing interest effectively. However, it’s important to consider the context and type of ad when interpreting CTR. For example, search ads often have higher CTRs than display ads because users actively seek specific information, which naturally leads to more clicks. This doesn't necessarily mean the search ad is more effective overall. Therefore, it’s crucial to evaluate CTR alongside other variables and avoid directly comparing different types of ads, like search and display.
