This week's data
Back in the day I used to do quick analyses of this week's data charts. I've decided to start again, so expect to see quick insights into the above charts in this newsletter going forward.
CPMs are looking cheaper, but clickthrough rates are dropping week over week. We're in the middle of a weird under-advertised fall Prime Day. But we're also preparing for BFCM, so it's an awkward time to scale spend.
Conversion performance is dropping off, but that's only because people know Black Friday is coming. I see this every year: in the months leading up to the big day, consumers are spending on travel tickets for the holidays and holding back on consumer spending because they know a big deal is coming. You're probably doing that yourself.
All things considered, the big swings in this week's data are indicative of a normal (if not difficult) week of performance for October. Stay the course for all your BFCM plans.
Now, on to our big announcement:
The marketing blind spot
Long story short: we just launched Clicks + Deterministic Views (C+DV), our new attribution model that lets you track revenue attributed to views and impressions as accurately as clickthroughs. Yes, for real.
C+DV is now available in all Northbeam dashboards. Go here to turn it on.
Plus I recommend you read our blog with the full explainer and technical details.
We made this model because too many marketers suffer from what I call the “bottom-of-funnel fallacy.”
While “one-day-clicks-only” measurement is the most popular style of marketing attribution, it creates a bias that can throw your ad account into a tailspin. If you’ve ever managed a digital marketing budget, you know what I’m talking about.
It goes like this: you run amazing awareness campaigns on TikTok, Snap, and CTV. On these platforms people don't always click through immediately. The content performs great, engagement is solid, brand mentions are up, and revenue begins to climb across all your other channels.
But according to your attribution dashboard? Those awareness campaigns are basically worthless, as they aren’t connected to any measurable revenue via click behaviors.
Meanwhile, your Google Ads are getting credit for literally every conversion, even though you know most of those people discovered your brand somewhere else first. Even TikTok will admit that click-based measurement undervalues TikTok ads by 73%.
The longer you ignore or undervalue your awareness campaigns, the sooner the performance of your bottom-of-funnel conversion campaigns dry up. This leads to further consolidation of budget to lower funnel campaigns, which creates a self-destructive cycle that eventually kills the ad account – and maybe even your business.
Before C+DV, marketers focused on clicks and not views because clicks used to be the most reliable measure for proving revenue.
It's like being a basketball coach and only focusing on stats about who scored the final basket, while completely ignoring all the assists, steals, and defensive plays that made it possible.
The marketing environment: attention is shifting
Media consumption is constantly changing, and marketers seeking competitive CPMs are looking to these new channels for efficiency. Yet many of the rising new channels are difficult to measure exclusively with clicks-based attribution. Good luck trying that on CTV.
As marketers, our goal is to get our message in front of the right people at the right time (in a measurable way, I’d argue.) As attention shifts to new channels, it’s our job to follow. So where are people going?
The short answer: video. Video-first, algorithmic-led social platforms lead in time spent on-app by users, with YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram dominating the field.
Meta has shifted focus to video with extreme success: Instagram and Facebook continue to command a large share of user attention per day.
Connected television (CTV) is taking over: in 2025, 90% of US households use an internet-connected television device at least once a month, where users are streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and even free providers like Tubi.
TikTok continues to lead the field in users’ time spent on app. The algorithm-driven discovery model of TikTok’s feed has sweeping influence on other social media, all of whom are launching similar feeds. Users love TikTok, and they love video – as marketers, we must react.
But how do you reliably measure the performance impact of these emerging video channels?
The solution: a different type of viewthrough model
As any marketer knows, videos drive considerably less clicks than static ads, but are massive for driving discovery and awareness.
Growth marketers needed a reliable model for measuring how these emerging placements drive revenue without clicks: C+DV is perfectly positioned to help you take advantage of this new media environment.
So what makes Clicks + Deterministic Views different? Instead of making educated guesses about what happened (like most view-through attribution models do), C+DV actually knows what happened.
We built direct integrations with the major platforms (Meta, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, Axon, Vibe, and MNTN) to get verified impression data. Not modeled data. Not estimated data. The actual "yes, this specific person saw this specific ad" data.
Then we match that against our first-party pixel and order data using exact identifiers: order IDs, hashed emails, login data. When we say an impression led to a conversion, we can prove it.
This is called “deterministic” attribution, where other viewthrough modeling is “probabilistic.”
The difference between deterministic and probabilistic attribution:
- Deterministic (what we do): Uses verified identifiers to directly connect an ad impression to a conversion. It's like having security camera footage.
- Probabilistic (what everyone else does): Uses statistical models to guess which ad drove a conversion based on signals like IP address and device type. It's like relying on eyewitness accounts.
What you can do with C+DV:
See the full customer journey: Finally understand how both clicks and views work together to drive conversions, instead of just seeing the last touchpoint. Witness the funnels that drive your conversions from the moment of discovery to the point of sale, and optimize accordingly.
Upper-funnel campaigns get their due: Quantify the actual revenue contribution of your awareness and prospecting campaigns that have been flying under the radar. Better connect revenue to top of funnel campaigns. Justify to clients, bosses, and stakeholders that your awareness campaigns are worth the spend. Finally.
Make decisions with confidence: Every impression tied to a conversion is proven, not modeled, so you can trust your data. Optimize, reallocate, and experiment in your top of funnel campaigns while knowing you have a way to accurately measure their viewthrough impact.
Smarter budget allocation: Know exactly which campaigns are driving downstream revenue and scale what actually works. Stop wasting spend on awareness campaigns that boost vanity metrics but don’t drive measurable revenue.
Cross-platform clarity: Get all your verified impression data combined with our order-level tracking in one unified view. See all your channels in one single dashboard.
Privacy-first approach: All data processing happens in our secure clean room, ensuring compliance and protecting user privacy.
Stop wasting money: Eliminate the over-crediting of last-click channels and avoid underspending on the campaigns that create real demand.
Want to see how it works? Read my full report on our blog.
tl;dr: you’ll hear a lot about Clicks + Deterministic Views over the coming weeks. We feel this will be a transformative shift in how marketers run their experiments in the top of funnel. We even made it into Axios. I’m personally excited to see what you all achieve.
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