Offsite impression tracking through tracking pixels is the most important thing for impressions and their tracking. Pixel tag and pixel transformation are the two technical terms in offsite impression tracking through tracking pixels. The amount of impressions received by each ad is tracked via impression tracking. The very first interaction with a potentially converting visitor is tracked using impressions. After that, they’re used to track how well people interact with the banner.
If a visitor visits a web page and sees a published ad, then reloads the page and sees the same ad again, two impressions are tallied. The most typical method of counting impressions is to deliver an 11 transparent graphic that informs the ad server of an impression. An impression tracker is what it’s called (or impression pixel).
The ad server returns a pixel to count the impression when the browser renders the ad markup, rather than counting it when the ad server picks the ad and returns the ad markup to the browser.
When the browser loads the creative, the ad impression is counted.
Basic metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions and more complex metrics like viewability and ad-exposure time are all tracked by AdTech systems. In addition, they can also track video ad metrics such as play counts, completion rates, and average viewing time.
Here we will talk about tracking offsite impressions with tracking pixels. In this post, you’ll learn what a tracking pixel is and how it works to track impressions.
What is A Tracking Pixel?
A tracking pixel is a 1×1 pixel transparent or embedded graphic that appears in a website or email background. It is stored on the server and is used to track and gather personal data from the website or email users. To scan your website for cookies and tracking pixels, use the CookieScript Consent Management Platform. Pixel transformation is the term that comes in the same scenario of impression tracking.
Tracking pixels allows advertisers to obtain all of the essential analytic facts, which is incredibly helpful. In addition, the tracking or marketing pixels enable cross-platform marketing, which involves tracking website visitors from one website or social network to another and displaying tailored advertisements across many platforms, devices, or websites.
The tracking pixel code includes an external link to the pixel server. When a person visits a website or reads an email containing an HTTP tracking pixel, the user’s browser processes the HTML code, then traces the link to the server and displays the pixel graphic. When the pixel server receives a request from a browser, it logs the action in its log files. The server can then track website or email user actions and determine which sites the user visited and what other actions they took.
How Does Tracking Pixels Work?
A pixel can be implemented and deployed in three ways:
- Providing a tracking URL to a third-party platform
- Installing a JavaScript tag on-site
- Using an HTML image element
In this section, we’ll go over each strategy.
Generate a Tracking URL
This method is typically employed when you merely require a pixel URL that can be copied and pasted into a third-party site. The third-party platform will then take care of transmitting the event to Permutive and making the pixel request.
We plan to make producing pixel URLs easier in the future, but for now, we recommend using the JavaScript snippets below in your web browser console to produce pixel URLs.
JavaScript Tags
This JavaScript technique can build a JavaScript tag that can be used on websites to fire events into Permutive when a user takes a specific action. These tags are widely used to track off-site conversions or on-site occurrences from within an isolated iframe or video player.
The JavaScript element looks identical to the previous one, but it contains code that can be deployed on-site and will fire the pixels.
HTML Image Elements
A 1×1 HTML image element is the final option for distributing tracking pixels. This strategy is most typically used in emails, where HTML is allowed but not JavaScript tags.
To use this method, first create a pixel URL by following the procedures in the Generate a Tracking URL section above. Once you have this, you can put the URL into an HTML image tag like this:
<img src=”<TRACKING URL>” height=”1″ width=”1″ border=”0″ />
Wrapping Up
The tracking pixels are an effective technique for collecting and analyzing data. The information gathered can assist website owners in delivering relevant adverts, identifying the most engaging audience, and improving the user experience on their site.
The tracking pixels, unlike cookies, cannot be disabled from the client-side. Therefore, most of the time, website or email users are unaware that tracking pixels are being used.
