Click-based vs. Impression-based Touchpoints

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.

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.

Pixel-Tracked Impressions

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.

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

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)

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.

FAQ

What is the difference between an impression and a click?

An impression is recorded when your ad appears on a user’s screen, regardless of whether they engage with it. A click occurs when a user actively interacts with the ad, typically by clicking on it, which signals higher interest and engagement.

What role do impression-based touchpoints play in the customer journey?

Impression-based touchpoints contribute to brand awareness by exposing your content to potential customers early in the customer journey. They are significant in building recognition and familiarity, which can influence users’ decisions later in the journey, even if they don’t immediately engage.

How does Roivenue handle walled garden platforms like Meta or Pinterest in attribution?

Roivenue addresses the challenge of walled garden platforms by generating synthetic impressions. These are based on post-view conversions and help ensure that the influence of these platforms on the customer journey is accurately represented, even when third-party tracking is restricted.

What are synthetic impressions, and why does Roivenue use them?

Synthetic impressions are created in Roivenue to account for instances where ad platforms (like Meta or Pinterest) restrict third-party tracking of impressions. Using post-view conversion data, Roivenue generates synthetic impressions to give marketers a more accurate view of how these ads contribute to the customer journey.

Why does Meta (or similar) report more conversions / higher net revenue than Roivenue?

There are a couple of reasons for this discrepancy. First, Meta and Roivenue use different methods for tracking and attributing conversions. While Meta assigns the full value of a conversion to itself, Roivenue’s AI Data Driven model distributes the value of the conversion across all the touchpoints along the customer journey. As a result, Roivenue only attributes a portion of the conversion's value to Meta, while Meta attributes the entire value to itself. Additionally, Roivenue cross-verifies Meta’s reported data with web analytics, excluding any unmatched conversions from its reports, which can lead to lower reported net revenue than Facebook.

Why does Roivenue attribute more to Facebook than Meta (or similar) attributes to itself?

There can be many reasons why Roivenue attributes more conversions to Facebook than Meta attributes to itself. A likely explanation for these discrepancies is the difference in attribution windows used for data collection, which can be adjusted based on client preferences to ensure the most accurate and customized reporting.

Meta’s default reporting typically uses a 1-day post-impression attribution window, meaning it tracks and attributes conversions that occur within one day of the ad being viewed. However, Roivenue can access impression data for up to 28 days through the Facebook API, capturing and attributing conversions that happen over a longer period, which Facebook’s default settings may miss. This can result in Roivenue attributing more conversions to Facebook, offering a broader view of ad performance.