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How to Check if Attribution is Set Up Properly

Guide to QAing an Integration

Ensuring that your setup is correct from the start is pivotal for reliable attribution. Attribution can only be reliable if the events being sent to Podscribe are correct. This is critical to check before campaigns start!

Here’s how to confirm all is correct with the integration:

1. Navigate to the Tag Setup tab.

2. Confirm all the right events are coming in.

Are all the events you want to track present in the Tag Setup tab? The shopify app sends purchase and view events, so those two should be present.

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The Tag Setup tab shows you all data coming into Podscribe from a brand or advertiser. It does not show you attributed events.

If a brand got 83 purchases in the past day, there should be 83 purchases on the Tag Debug tab. This does not mean that 83 purchases came from podcast ad listeners.

3. Confirm that all events have expected data points

Confirm that the events, specifically purchases, have all expected data points by scrolling down on the Tag Debug tab. You can click on an individual row to expand it and see all the data sent in. For purchases, check to see if the Order ID, order value, hashed emails, and discount codes have correct values. If not, let us know at adops@podscribe.com!

4. Confirm that the right number of events have come in

After two days have passed, check that the number of purchases on Podscribe is roughly the same as the number of purchases on the brand's backend. Waiting for two days ensures that there's at least one full day of events that have come in. The discrepancy (if any) should be no more than 10%. You can also change the Tag Debug’s timezone from its default as UTC to see if it improves match rates.

To count events by day on Podscribe, you can hover your mouse over the line chart, or download a chart of events by day by clicking the download icon on the top right of the line graph.

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QUICK TIP: You can see if the tag on your site is firing by searching for “Podscribe” in the Network tab under Inspect Element on any page. Quick demo.
 

5. Map events to Podscribe events.

Once events come into the Tag Setup tab, the last step is to select which Podscribe event your event should be mapped to and turn on attribution for it. Click on the dropdown field under Mapped To, then select which event it should be mapped to. Standard events like purchase will be auto-mapped to Purchase on the dash. But a more custom event like af_purchase will need to be manually mapped to Purchase before it shows up on your dashboard.

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If attribution is turned on without being mapped to an event, the event won’t show up on the dashboard but it will in CSVs downloaded. You can also map multiple events to the same dashboard event to combine them on the dash.

 

Questions? Check out our FAQs below for answers!

What pages can I use certain event tags on?

You can use the “signup”, “lead”, or “purchase” events on any page you’d like. For example, if you wanted to measure how many exposed listeners visited a Sign-up page, you could fire the “signup” event on page view. Then, once they completed the form, you could fire the Lead event, passing us the hashed email. We recommend placing the “visit” tag on all pages.

Can I use custom event names? I want to create and track other events besides installs, views, signups, leads, and purchases.

Yes! If the primary 5 events are not adequate, we can track custom, additional events. We can also support re-naming the standard event names on our dashboard to names you’re more familiar with, such as “Account Creation”. To do so, you would simply change the name of the action in your javascript tag from “purchase” or “view” to the custom event name you’d like:

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Instead of loading the script bundle, can we call a 1x1 image pixel, or pass events server-side, or in batch?

Yes - please see this guide for more.

How do I know which advertiser to pick? There are many that pop up with the name of the advertiser.

Podscribe regularly removes duplicate advertisers, but here are some steps that you can take to ensure you're selecting the right advertiser.

  1. Look up the different advertisers with the same name on Podscribe.
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  1. Check all of the advertisers one by one. If the logo and website are correct, then that advertiser is likely the correct one.
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      Select the name displayed on the advertiser page as the advertiser’s name when creating your campaign:

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      Feel free to reach out to adops@podscribe.com if you can't find the advertiser you're looking for or if the logo and website are blank while the name is correct.

What is the Content Security Policy (CSP) for the Podscribe web tag?
Content-Security-Policy:

default-src
self

script-src
d34r8q7sht0t9k.cloudfront.net

connect-src
verifi.podscribe.com
pixel.tapad.com
ipv4.podscribe.com
I have a new client! What's the fastest way to get javascript pixels to send them?

It is to generate them from the Tag Setup tab:

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How important is it to include a hashed email in the pixel? If we do not, what would we lose out on?

Sending us hashed emails lets us find 10-20% more attributed conversions, so it is certainly helpful to have! Here’s further detail on the part that hashed emails play in attribution. If you send us raw emails, we hash them as they come in and only store the hashed ones.

The tag is not showing up under the Conversions column. Where can I find it?

This can happen when we're already getting some events from the tag. You can find it in the Tag Setup tab, beside the advertiser name:

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From where can I get the javascript pixels to send a brand?

From the Tag Setup tab - here’s how to generate them.

How does attribution work when the devices and locations for listening and purchasing are different?

If a listener downloads an episode/ad on their home WiFi and purchases on their home WiFi, it is easy to IP-match directly.

If they purchase in a different location, Podscribe will look up their laptop/phone cookie ID, or their hashed email in our Tapad device graph. ~40% of the time Tapad can tell us their home IP address which we can then match to the IP address they downloaded the podcast with the ad on.

If they download the podcast off of home WiFi, then their results are typically modeled from in-home download performance. This guide has a few examples that may be useful.

Why are my conversions fractional?

Conversions and visits have decimals because of modeling. When modeling, we multiply the number of actual conversions we have on file by an ISP weight, which is the reciprocal of the percentage of impressions that we have from residential IPs. Sometimes the reciprocal can be a fraction, so the final conversion will be a fraction too.

For example: A brand gets 20 attributed purchases. The number of impressions from residential IPs is 47%. We will then multiply 20 by 1/0.47, which equals 2.13, to get a total conversion count of 42.6.

How does Podscribe evaluate the accuracy of its attribution methodology?

Podscribe compares pixel-based results with promo code, vanity URLs, and post-purchase survey data to triangulate our results.

How is Podscribe preparing for Chrome’s deprecation of 3rd party cookies?

Podscribe has long since transitioned away from 3rd party cookies. Our web tag sets a 1st party cookie, which will be unaffected by the change.

Additionally, we request when possible that clients include with conversion events 1st party data, specifically:

  • hashed emails, which we have long seen a better match rate to household IPs
  • mobile ad IDs (IDFA, GAID) for in-app events

These 1st party data points not only future-proof our methodology but also improve the accuracy of our methodology. We use hashed emails and mobile ad IDs to look up the converting user’s household IP in the Tapad device graph. This lets us match cross-IP conversions.

What mobile device partners (MMPs) does Podscribe work with?

Podscribe works with all major MMPs including: Adjust, Appsflyer, Kochava, Singular, and Segment.

Does Podscribe use a device graph?

Yes, Podscribe uses device graph partner, Tapad. Tapad is used when a conversion occurs on a different IP than the listener IP. When this happens, Podscribe passes Tapad the hashed email of the purchaser and Tapad will match the user's device to their home IP address where the listen occurred.

What is the Device Graph Match Rate to HH?

~40% depending on whether hashed emails are collected.

Does Podscribe support attribution on other channels besides podcasting?

Yes, Podscribe supports streaming and CTV attribution. Podscribe automatically merges exposures across channels into one holistic dashboard. Podscribe also supports simulcast reporting (next question).

Is Podscribe’s attribution supported internationally?

Yes, in most foreign countries.

What pages can I use certain event tags on?

We recommend placing the “visit” tag on all pages. You can use the “signup” , “lead” or “purchase” events on any page you’d like. For example, if you wanted to measure how many exposed listeners visited a Sign-up page, you could fire the “signup” event on page view.Then, once they completed the form, you could fire the Lead event, passing us the hashed email.

The attributed counts of each event (installs, visits, signups, leads, purchases) will all appear separately on your dashboard

What attribution models does Podscribe offer? First, Last, Multi-touch?

First, last, multi-touch linear to divide credit evenly, and multi-touch time-decay to favor more recent exposures. You can also assign your own weights from on all attributed conversions by using our Individual Conversions CSV export.

What conversion windows does Podscribe support?

Configurable from 0-60 days.

Does Podscribe offer podcast promotion tracking (SmartPromos)?

Yes.

 
 
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