Crafting a successful marketing strategy goes beyond just serving up the right ads—it’s about truly getting into the mind of your customer, following their journey, and understanding what nudges them closer to that all-important purchase decision. Let’s break it down with a simple example: Peter is casually scrolling through Facebook and comes across an ad for a new sneaker brand. A few hours later, he spots a similar ad on YouTube. Later still, an influencer he follows mentions the brand and drops a link. Peter clicks on that link, checks out the shoes on the brand’s site, but doesn’t buy just yet. A few days later, he searches for the brand on Google, revisits the website, and finally, returns via a saved link to make the purchase.
This is a pretty typical customer journey. Each time Peter interacts with the brand, he hits what we call a touchpoint. Every one of those touchpoints gives us a little more insight into his behavior—was it just a quick glance at the ad (an impression), or did he actively engage by clicking on the ad or link? This distinction between impressions and clicks is key. Whether customers are passively viewing your brand or actively engaging can tell you a lot about how your campaigns are performing and where you need to make adjustments.
Let’s dive into how impression-based and click-based touchpoints work, why they matter, and how you can measure them effectively to sharpen your strategy.
Impression-based touchpoints
Impressions are those moments when your audience sees your ad but doesn’t interact with it. They’re simply viewing it. This happens everywhere—on social media, display ads, video ads, you name it. While impressions might seem like passive interactions, they’re crucial in building brand awareness. It’s the early stage of the customer journey, the point where your brand is starting to get on their radar.
But here’s the thing: measuring the impact of impressions can be tricky, and since they don’t offer immediate, measurable results, many marketers focus on lower-funnel strategies—those driving direct clicks or conversions. And that’s where they miss out. The upper funnel, where impressions live, is like an untapped goldmine. There’s less competition, lower costs, and a wide audience just waiting to be engaged.
Think of it like this: imagine the upper funnel as a wide-open pond, full of fish, but with very few fishermen. It doesn’t take much effort to reel them in. The lower funnel, on the other hand, is like a crowded pond where everyone’s throwing out high-end bait, driving up costs. Sure, it’s easier to catch fish, but the competition is fierce and the gains are short-lived.
Investing in impression-based touchpoints in the upper funnel is about playing the long game. You’re planting the seeds of recognition and familiarity. These early interactions help lay the foundation for when the customer is ready to move further down the funnel. Marketers who ignore this stage are missing out on nurturing a broader audience, which will later convert at a much higher rate.
Measuring impressions effectively
So, how do you actually measure impressions? There are two main methods: pixel tracking and Synthetic Touchpoints. Let’s look at both.
Pixel-tracked impressions
Pixel tracking is the most common method for capturing impressions. A tiny piece of code, known as a pixel, is embedded in your ad. Each time your ad is displayed, the pixel logs that view, giving you valuable data on how often your ad is seen. However, it’s not always smooth sailing. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram block third-party tracking pixels, which limits your ability to track impressions outside their ecosystem. This leaves marketers relying on platform-reported data, which can inflate performance metrics and give you an incomplete picture.
Roivenue’s Synthetic Impressions
To overcome these challenges, advanced tools like Roivenue have developed Synthetic Impressions, which help marketers replicate and verify impression data in environments where pixel tracking is blocked – even in “walled gardens” like Facebook, Snap, or Pinterest, where third-party tracking is restricted. It’s a smart way to fill the gaps and ensure you’re capturing the complete customer journey, even when external data visibility is limited.
Double-counted conversions
One of the biggest headaches in digital marketing is dealing with double-counted conversions. It happens when multiple platforms—say, Facebook and Google—both claim credit for the same conversion. So, you might end up with two platforms each taking full credit for a single sale. This can massively inflate your performance metrics, making it look like your campaigns are more successful than they actually are.
Here’s where it gets tricky: most analytics tools, like Google Analytics 4 (GA4), often undervalue the impact of platforms like Facebook. They don’t always capture the full effect of post-view conversions, which are those conversions that happen after someone sees your ad but doesn’t immediately click. On the other hand, platforms like Facebook can overestimate their contribution because they might include these post-view conversions and claim the entire credit for the sale.
To solve this, Roivenue steps in. It collects hourly data from ad platforms on post-view conversions and matches it with conversion data tracked by Roivenue Measurement. When the same conversion is claimed by multiple platforms, Roivenue generates a Synthetic Impression for each, mapping them onto the existing customer journey. This gives you a complete and accurate picture of how each platform contributed, without any inflated metrics or messy overlaps.
Click-based touchpoints
Now, let’s talk about clicks—the active form of engagement. When a customer clicks on your ad, they’re showing a higher level of interest. They’ve moved from just viewing your content to actually engaging with it, which is a significant step in their decision-making process.
Clicks are tracked through URL parameters, like UTM tags, which allow you to see where your traffic is coming from and attribute it to specific campaigns. This helps you understand which ads or content are resonating most with your audience and driving engagement. Analyzing click-based touchpoints provides deeper insights into what’s working and where you can tweak things to optimize performance.
Clicks vs. Impressions: making sense of Click-Through Rate (CTR)
To evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns, Click-Through Rate (CTR) is often used as a key metric. CTR measures the percentage of people who clicked on your ad compared to the total number of impressions it received. It’s a direct way to gauge user engagement, but it’s not the only thing you should be looking at.
Here’s why: not all campaigns are built to drive clicks. Some, like brand awareness campaigns, are focused on visibility. In these cases, a lower CTR isn’t necessarily a bad thing because the primary goal is to increase exposure, not immediate engagement.
It’s also important to remember that different ad formats will naturally have different CTRs. For example, search ads tend to have higher CTRs because people are actively looking for information, while display ads focus more on visibility and tend to have lower CTRs. The key is to evaluate CTR in the context of your campaign goals, rather than viewing it as a standalone success metric.
Key takeaways
Impressions are vital for building brand awareness early in the customer journey. Even if they don’t lead to immediate action, they play a crucial role in creating familiarity and trust.
Clicks signal active engagement, offering a clear indication of interest and intent. Tracking click-based touchpoints helps you fine-tune your messaging and campaign performance.
CTR isn’t everything. While it’s a helpful metric, it should be viewed in relation to your campaign’s objectives. Brand awareness campaigns might not drive high CTRs, but they’re still effective at boosting visibility.
With tools like Roivenue, you can overcome the challenges of tracking both impressions and clicks—even in tricky environments like Facebook’s Walled Garden. Using Synthetic Impressions, you can capture accurate data and build a complete customer journey that blends both impression-based and click-based touchpoints. By balancing impression and click strategies, you’ll be able to engage your audience at every stage of their journey, from initial awareness to conversion, ensuring a more robust and effective marketing strategy.