What is Northbeam? Start here.

At its core, Northbeam is a data company. Northbeam is a source of truth that makes your advertising profitable by:

• Utilizing first-party data to provide better signals across marketing funnels
• Operating in an unbiased, conservative way to understand your various channels
• Functioning on an indefinite attribution window so you can see your touchpoint data over time

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Let's go ahead and get started.

Get acquainted with the different topics below and turbocharge your marketing capabilities.

You'll be able to best leverage Northbeam by getting familiar with the following concepts:

1. Accounting Modes: Northbeam offers two different settings to determine when conversion and revenue credit are given:
   1. Cash Snapshot
   2. Accrual Performance
2. Attribution Models: Northbeam provides six different attribution models to assign credit for conversion events to relevant marketing touchpoints.
   1. We analyze which parts of your marketing funnels and customer journeys drive the most impact and revenue.

Other useful information in our Northbeam Academy:

1. Attribution Windows: the length of time in which a touchpoint receives credit for a conversion.
   1. Attribution Windows are only available using the Accrual Performance Mode
2. Northbeam Metrics 101: the metrics that we provide in our platform such as Attributed Revenue, Transactions (also known as Conversions), Impressions, and Views.

Why do my in-platform metrics look different from Northbeam?

This is one of the most common questions we get — and the short answer is: the difference is intentional.

Ad platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok each attribute conversions in silos. When a customer clicks a Facebook ad, then a Google ad, then converts — both platforms claim full credit. Add up all your in-platform revenue and it will far exceed your actuals. That's the problem Northbeam solves.

Northbeam tracks touchpoints across every channel and distributes credit across the full journey using our default Clicks-Only attribution model. Lower numbers in Northbeam aren't a red flag — they're a more honest picture.

📺 Watch this quick overview:

TL;DR:

Northbeam and platform data are built on disparate technology stacks designed for separate goals, and our teams have contrasting philosophies (and end-goals) when it comes to attributing revenue to different marketing touchpoints.

Why? Our end-goal goal is to provide you with independent and unbiased data.

• This means that our calculations may result in metrics different than what you see in-platform. We believe that our metrics objectively portray what is actually going on in a customer’s journey before they ultimately convert.
• Differences in reported data are expected. You can see these differences even between your platforms (Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Klaviyo, etc).

Northbeam’s aims to give you the most complete and actionable customer journey insights by assigning appropriate credit to any and all marketing touchpoints. Our data will look different to what you see in-platform, and that's a good thing.

How do I know my tracking is working?

Revenue isn't the right signal — it will always look lower in Northbeam because credit is split across touchpoints. Check Visits instead.

A visit is recorded when two things happen: the pixel fires on a page load, and UTMs are intact to tie the session to a channel. Compare Northbeam visits against platform-reported clicks — we call this the Visit-to-Click (VTC) rate. A healthy range is 30–50%.

If VTC is well below 30%, first verify UTMs are surviving end-to-end by testing your links manually. If UTMs look fine, check GA4 sessions — they're the most accurate external benchmark. If Northbeam and GA4 roughly align but both diverge from platform clicks, the platform is overcounting. If GA4 is significantly higher than Northbeam, contact support.