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Flight Control Help Center

Data Sources Overview

  • Updated

General

Data sources are used to collect data about user interactions that occur on a client's website or application, offline events, or aggregated data from media partners. The collected data can be utilized for retargeting, reporting, attribution, and conversions. Flight Control allows advertisers to connect multiple data sources to an account to be used in ad decisioning, conversion measurement, and more.

  • The data source can be first-party (owned by the advertiser) or third-party (collected and owned by a third-party vendor that isn't the advertiser or Clinch).
  • The data source can provide event-level data or aggregated data.
  • The most commonly used data source type is website pixels, followed by app events. Both are considered first-party data used for building user profiles for ad-decisioning and conversion attribution.

Data Source Types

Type Description Implementation Method Delivery Method

Website Pixel

1st Party/Event Level
  • Consumers' page visits and in-page events on the advertiser's website
  • Each event contains the Event Type, Page URL, and other dynamic parameters related to the event
  • Script-based: Clinch provides a main JS tag to add to the document <head> and small line of JS for each event to fire
  • Image Pixel based:Clinch provides a table of the image tags to implement and their dynamic parameters to insert
  • Web request sent from the browser to Flight Control tracking endpoint per event
  • The data elements sit in the request URL parameters
  • Mapping of the keys/values is optional on the Clinch side to align Flight Control to naming convention

App Events

1st Party/Event Level

 
  • Consumers' page visits and actions on the advertiser's mobile app. (considered equivalent to website pixels for in-app)
  • Integration with 3P Mobile SDK/Attribution vendors (e.g., AppsFlyer+ Branch).
  • The app sends events to the 3P vendor servers
  • The advertiser enables  forwarding selected events and parameters to Clinch servers
  • Events are sent server-to-server from the 3P vendor to clinch tracking endpoint (one by one)
  • The data elements sit in the request URL parameters
  • Mapping of the keys/values is required on the Clinch side to align to Flight Control naming convention

Media Performance Data

3rd Party/Aggregated Data
  • Integration with The Trade Desk (TTD).
  • Clinch sends campaign and creative data (creative variants data) to TTD and receives aggregated data in return.
  • After a client creates this data source type, they must open a support ticket so that Clinch can internally map the received third-party data.
  • The Trade Desk Data is currently sent daily through emails using a custom report using the TTD "my reports" tool.
  • Clinch handles the connection to the advertiser account.

Offline Events

1st Party/Event Level

 
  • Integrate with offline event vendors to ingest offline events such as in-store purchases, foot traffic, etc.
  • Use this data source in the attribution setup to associate impressions/clicks to these offline events thus creating offline conversions.
 LiveRamp: Refer to LiveRamp FBR Integration for more information. Normally handled through daily files.

Data Sources Table

This table lists your account's existing data sources and allows the user to manage the data source, download implementation instructions, and view data source statistics for validation and QA purposes.

The table contains the following columns:

Column Name Description
Status

Active + Pause toggle

  • Switching the Data Source to ‘Pause’ will stop collecting and storing the events on Clinch’s side
  • Use the Active + Pause toggle if you want to temporarily disable data collection while still keeping the setup for future needs

Note: When in "Pause" mode, Statistics won't accumulate more data.
ID Displays the ID of the data source.
Name Displays the name of the data source.
Type
  • Website pixels
  • App events
  • Media performance data
  • Offline events
Statistics

Provides a high-level overview of the data collected.

  • Use it to confirm data is being collected and get the total number of events received yesterday.
  • Use the "Insights Data" quick link for further data source analysis.
Used In Attribution Displays all attribution setups in which the data source is used.
Partner
  • The 3rd party vendor's name and ID.
  • This is relevant only for data sources delivered through third-party vendors.

Quicklinks

Hover over a data source within the table to use the following quicklinks:

Quicklink Description
Edit Lets you edit the data source.
  • Download Pixel Code (website pixel)
  • Get Instructions (app events pixel)
 Depending on the pixel type, this lets you retrieve a CSV containing the pixel code or instructions on implementing the app events pixel.
Insights Data Opens the data source's Detailed Data window, where you can see event data for the data source under a set date range and filters.

Mapping

App-event pixel data sources only

 After confirming that event data is being received in Flight Control, this lets you map the vendor or application parameter names and values in Flight Control to align with Flight Control naming conventions.

Source health

Website and app-event pixel data sources only

Provides "health reports" for a website or app-event pixel, which you can use to ensure the existence and validity of incoming events and their technical parameters.

Note: Only account admins can see and use this quicklink.

Two report types exist:

  • Data Source technical parameter - This report type is used to ensure the existence and validity of incoming events and technical parameters. It includes all identifiers (cookies, device IDs, etc.), event types, and the referrer URL from where the pixel was fired.
  • Data Source content - This report type is used to ensure the existence and validity of event tracking. It includes all event types (AddToCart, AddToWishlist, etc.) and their parameters, such as currency, product IDs, and so on.