Conversion Pixels Overview

Conversion pixels allow you to track the success of a tactic by reporting back when the user completes an action on your website after clicking or viewing an advertisement. Not only will conversion tracking tell you how many times this action has been completed, but it will also allow you to associate a dollar value to that action for revenue reporting. After you place conversion pixels, you can see how many conversions are generated from each site, placement, ad, and so on.

Use conversion pixels to track any action or event on your website, such as:

  • Purchases

  • Website sign-ups

  • Email address submissions

  • Arrivals on your "goal page"

How Conversion Pixels Work

A conversion pixel is a short line of code that advertisers place on their conversion pages (“thank you” pages). The DSP keeps track of the impressions and clicks that occur for your campaigns, and these events are tied to a user ID (such as a cookie ID, mobile advertising ID, etc.).

When the user clicks one of the ads in the tactic, a cookie is placed on that user’s browser. That cookie records the time, domain, placement, creative, etc. that the user clicked.

Later, when the user arrives at the advertiser's thank you page and the browser loads the conversion pixel, the server looks up the user ID for the list of impressions and clicks that have occurred for the user recently. If there is a match between a conversion pixel and a tactic, the conversion is attributed to the most recent “touch” (impression or click) that occurred. Clicks trump impressions--that is, if a click occurs but another impression occurs after, the conversion will be attributed to the click.

As a result of this process, you can see the number of conversions that occurred as a result of the last touch on a particular site, exchange, ad, placement, or wherever it occurred. This information, along with the revenue generated from that conversion, is available in your tactic statistics.

View-through Conversions

View-through conversions are counted for users that have seen your ad even if they did not click it. While clickthrough conversions can only be attributed to a single "last click" event, viewthrough conversions may possibly be attributed to many views of an ad which could have occurred on multiple sites.

The DSP counts a viewthrough conversion (VTC) for every time/place the ad was seen. When you set up conversion tracking for a tactic, viewthrough conversions are enabled by default.

Dynamic Conversion Values

If the revenue value of a conversion will not be the same every time, you can send the conversion value when you call the pixel. See Tracking Conversions with Dynamic Values.

Universal Pixels

Universal pixels can act as conversion pixels and audience pixels on multiple pages at once. After you create a conversion pixel, use universal pixels to add conversions to it . See Universal Pixels and Universal Pixel Rules for more information.

To ensure that your conversion settings run as intended in the EU, and to see how Basis behaves in accordance with local laws and regulations, see Local Laws and Regulations.