We pioneered the Clicks & Views attribution model to give you a holistic understanding of the full customer journey
Your Northbeam attribution models leverage machine learning! This means your Northbeam dashboard has had the opportunity to ingest your data to stitch together customer journeys and you can start accounting for view-through data when analyzing attribution decisions.
Clicks & Views provides directionality on which ads within a channel are driving the most results and which ones are ineffective. Utilizing the Clicks & Views model in conjunction with Northbeam’s Clicks Only attribution model can help you fill in any “click-through” gaps, particularly for channels like Social and Video that are highly view-oriented.
What is the Clicks & Views Attribution model?
Clicks & Views is Northbeam’s proprietary machine learning model that accounts for impression and ad engagement data when making attribution decisions. This model looks to split attribution credit on a Multi-Touch basis, and reduces attribution credit to any direct, organic search, paid branded search, or email/SMS touchpoints in the customer's journey. The Clicks & Views model will also give appropriate credit to Views at any point throughout the customer's journey.
✏️ NOTE: View-Through data measures how many visitors saw your ad but did not click.
We built this model because unattributed traffic is not helpful for marketers when trying to analyze which channels are powering their highest-converting paths. Although our Clicks Only model is our most accurate model because clicks are hard data, there are many conversions that won’t be captured because clicks don’t represent the entire picture. We know that many customers eventually convert via direct visits after watching a TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook ad. This is why our Clicks & Views model tries to assign proper credit to any ad views throughout a conversion path. This can help make your data more actionable by giving you a more complete picture of what’s going on with your campaigns.
How does Clicks + Views work?
At a high level, our model tracks engagement metrics (impressions, video views, etc.) and tries to find correlations between those metrics and any corresponding organic spikes. Our model then makes an educated guess using machine learning from your data to assign organic traffic and conversions to the ad campaign that prompted that behavior. Please note the attribution window for Clicks + Views is 1 day view only regardless of what option you select.
How do I view Clicks & Views data?
- Log onto your Northbeam dashboard.
- Navigate over and click on either the Overview tab or Sales tab on the left panel.
- On the top of the page, you’ll find the Attribution Model dropdown
- Select Clicks + Views. You’ll notice that Organic, Organic Search, and Branded Search metrics are all zeroed out in this model.
When do you use Clicks & Views?
One of the most common questions we get is: Which attribution model is the best one to use to make media buying decisions? The answer is: Clicks & Views offers directionality of what views are driving incremental revenue. Look for big gaps between revenue reported in Clicks Only versus Clicks + Views to better understand what assisted the organic conversions. We recommend using the Model Comparison tool in Northbeam to do this via the hamburger icon on the top right of your Northbeam dashboard next to the maintenance alerts icon.
Let’s say you notice that Clicks + Views captures a bunch of revenue attributed to YouTube ads that weren’t captured in Clicks Only. This could mean that YouTube ads are driving revenue, but we should try and validate these results before dramatically scaling spend. One way to do that is to conduct post-purchase surveys and track where incremental revenue is coming from. You could also slowly ramp up spend on YouTube while keeping an eye on blended revenue numbers to see if they’re highly correlated. If post-purchase surveys are also indicating YouTube as a leading channel, then you can be reasonably confident that YouTube ads are having a positive and additive impact on your business.
What is the benefit of looking at the Clicks & Views model?
Ultimately, the Clicks & Views model can help you better allocate your marketing dollars. You spend less on conversion ads if more people view them, don’t click, and then later purchase.