How Are Ad Impressions Weighted?

If you are using LeadsRx impression tracking for display advertising, you may wonder how those impressions are weighted versus clicks. Ad impression touchpoints receive the same “value” as any other touchpoint. There is no difference. What that weight is depends, of course, on the attribution model being used.

Consider this attribution path:

Impression => Google Search => Google Search => Direct visit => CONVERSION

• Using first touch attribution, the ad impression would get 100% credit.
• Using linear multi-touch, the impression gets 25% credit, Google search gets 50%, and the direct visit gets 25% (of course this depends on the settings you have for how to treat direct visits).

Using the LeadsRx Algorithmic Multi-Touch attribution model, our system determines a “weight” for each touchpoint, every night, for every account. The strongest contributor to the overall calculation is the conversion rate of the touchpoint. Touchpoints that convert more often have higher weights. If these same touchpoints start to under-perform past levels, their weights are reduced (or increased if they do better).

Again, there is no difference here for the ad impression from the ad click. LeadsRx treats them equally. That said, due to the large number of ad impressions overall relative to the number of ad clicks, conversion rates for impressions are typically low.

Is this “fair” and is “enough” credit is being given to impressions using the algorithmic model?  Ultimately, it is subjective.

Partially for this reason, you have the ability in LeadsRx to override the system-generated weights by setting a different value for any touchpoint, including impressions. This adjustment can be made from the Settings section of your account. Go to the touchpoint list and use the EDIT button for any given touchpoint to adjust the touchpoint weight.