Implementing your 3P IMG pixel to encourage the best data results for performance tracking
Due to the nature of img pixels, Spotify Ad Analytics is unable to provide assistance with the QA or troubleshooting of an img pixel implementation.
Spotify Ad Analytics recommends utilizing a JS pixel whenever possible, however, we understand that sometimes an IMG pixel is the only option. When using IMG either through your Floodlight container or ssGTM, placing the pixel correctly remains key to receiving performance measurement metrics that can be used to story tell both mid and post-campaign.
Similar to JS implementation, each brand utilizes data specific to the measurement of their own KPIs and there is not a universal blanket approach to verifying and validating appropriate pixel placement. However, we know that advertisers may have multiple KPIs being tracked for each campaign, so we recommend reviewing our overall pixel best practices for more recommendations on pixel placement.
Here, we will review the img placement best practices for the three most common KPIs measured.
KPI: Brand Awareness
For Brand Awareness campaigns, we recommend the Page View pixel is placed site-wide across the Top Level Domain (TLD). This includes all subdomains and pages that a listener can find when searching for the company via search engine. When placed site-wide, the Spotify page view pixel will allow Spotify Ad Analytics to attribute traffic to the campaign regardless of what page they entered the website.
Casting a large net with the page view pixel will give us data points for attributing conversions at a high level, but will also provide you as the advertiser more granular datapoints for your own use, such as pages visited after a purchase is made, user journey, where users are dropping, etc. While the granular details are not displayed in the campaign dashboard itself, they are available in the Campaign Conversions Export (filter for Page Views).
The HTML code you will utilize for an img pixel page view implementation will look similar to this:
<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://img.byspotify.com?key={Pixel_ID}&a=init" />
Steps to Verify Your IMG Page View Pixel Placement
KPI: Sign-up/Interest (LEADS)
The most common pixel event used when tracking interest (sign ups, quotes, newsletters, free memberships, etc) is the LEAD pixel event. This event has customizable fields such as lead_type, lead_category, and value, which makes it the perfect event to use for tracking multiple lead types.
When tracking lead events, we recommend that the “value” variable is only populated if the lead itself is worth revenue to the company. For example, if you are tracking insurance quotes, each quote might be worth $5 to your company. If this value pulls through when the lead event fires, it will be counted towards the overall revenue (and subsequent revenue based metrics) within your campaign dashboard. If a lead is not worth anything to the overall bottom line, we recommend not pulling a value through and leaving the “value” variable blank when placing the pixel on your event.
LEAD events can be set to fire when the event is triggered, such as a form being submitted, or when a specific webpage is visited, such as “find my closest store”. Wherever the LEAD event is placed, you want to ensure that it fires only on the desired outcome. If you would like to track how many people start a form and subsequently finish (or abandon) the form, you can use two different lead events to do so.
The HTML code you will utilize to implement the LEAD img pixel will look similar to this:
<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://img.byspotify.com?key=(Pixel_ID}&type={lead_type}&category={lead_category}&value={value}&currency={ISO_currency}&a=lead" />
Steps to Verify Your IMG Lead Event Placement
KPI: Completed Purchases
For down-funnel campaigns, the placement of your purchase event is critical. Spotify Ad Analytics provides data based on campaign revenue and campaign cost, so ensuring your purchase event provides correct data will assist in more robust data to use internally.
Your purchase event should fire only on the completed purchase itself, on a confirmation page that cannot be refreshed or revisited, or on a confirmation page only once. Failure to restrict the purchase event from firing 1x on a post-purchase event may lead to inflated purchases and subsequent revenue data.
The Spotify purchase event allows for some customizations, including order_id, promo code, value, and currency. We do not recommend hard-coding these values, and rather recommend using a variable to pull these values in. Please note that for a variable to be passed to us, it must be surfaced to the data layer. Variables are different from one company to the next, so please confirm with your internal team the correct variables to use.
Unlike LEAD events, you should only place 1 (one) purchase event throughout your entire dashboard. Purchase events can capture product information, so if you have multiple product checkout options, utilize the product variable to allow you to quickly differentiate between purchases when reviewing your Campaign Conversions export.
The HTML code you will use to implement your purchase pixel event will look similar to this:
<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://img.byspotify.com?key=(Pixel_ID}&value={value}&order_id={order_id}&discount_code={discount_code}&currency={ISO_currency}&a=purchase" />
Steps to Verify Your Purchase Event Placement
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Pixel FAQs