Understanding Customer Journeys

We have a unique approach to tracking customer journeys, which consist of a series of Visits—each representing a meaningful touchpoint that helps map the path to a sale.

1. What is a Visit?

• A Visit typically marks the beginning of a session, which is defined as a period of continuous activity on the site. A session generally ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. Customer journeys are composed of these Visits, which serve as the key touchpoints we recognize.

• The source that drove the first page view of the session is credited with the Visit. For example, if a user lands on the site with UTMs in the URL (e.g., utm_source=everflow), but they are already in an active session, the Everflow UTM will be recognized, but it will not be recorded as a Visit and will not appear in the customer journey in the dashboard.

  • There is one key exception: Mid-Session Ad Clicks

    • If a user clicks an ad from Google Ads, Meta Ads, or Microsoft Ads during an active session, it creates a separate Visit. Our system identifies these mid-session ad clicks through platform-specific parameters in the URL:

      • gclid for Google Ads
      • fbclid for Meta Ads
      • msclkid for Microsoft Ads

      These clicks are treated as new, distinct Visits—even though they happen mid-session—because they indicate a strong signal of renewed intent driven by a paid source.

Example

1. A user clicks a TikTok ad with UTMs and lands on the homepage – this creates Visit #1, credited to TikTok.
2. The user browses the site for several minutes.
3. They later return via a bookmarked product page that contains new UTMs (e.g., utm_source=everflow) – this does not create a new Visit and will not be included in the customer journey.
   • ➤ This is because the user is still in an active session, and the source of the session has already been attributed.
   • ➤ We do not track every page view as a Visit, as doing so would result in over-attribution and noisy, inaccurate reporting. Our system is designed to only log meaningful entry points into the session.
4. Mid-session, the user clicks a Google ad containing a gclid and lands on a collection page – this creates Visit #2, credited to Google Ads.

2. Why don’t we record every UTM as a Visit?

• Our system is intentionally designed to focus on meaningful session entry points, not every individual page view.

• If a user is already in an active session and navigates to a new page with different UTMs, those UTMs will not generate a new Visit or be captured in reporting. This approach helps maintain accurate, focused attribution and avoids over-counting sources that did not truly initiate the session.

FAQs

1. What's the difference between Google Analytics and Northbeam (Sessions vs. Visits)?

Google Analytics and Northbeam share nearly the same definition for a session or visit:

• A session is a period of activity followed by 30 minutes or more of inactivity. New events tracked after 30 minutes will track as a new session.

Visits in Northbeam are comparable to sessions in Google Analytics and should be closely aligned, but often differ for a number of reasons:

Mid-session ad clicks

Google Analytics do not recognize mid-session ad clicks as new sessions like we do.

Install Location and Priority

A common reason for differences in visits between Northbeam and Google Analytics is the install location and timing of loading the pixel. If the Northbeam pixel is loaded after GA, it's expected that Northbeam will track fewer visits due to bounced visits where the user ended their session after GA finished loading, but before Northbeam loaded.

If tracking these visits is important for you to understand, make sure that Northbeam is loaded in the head element of your pages, and with a high priority, so that it loads as early as GA.

Bots & Scrapers

Visits tracked by Google Analytics are not always real humans visiting your site, but simply bots and scrapers. Northbeam filters bot traffic, search browser robots, and other scrapers by default, resulting in better signal, but fewer tracked visits than Google Analytics.

Large discrepancies

Seeing a significant difference in data between GA and Northbeam? This could indicate that one tool is not installed to track all pages, or that a platform is double-installed and artificially counting sessions.

• Are both pixels installed on the same domains? Does one platform track sessions from a domain that the other does not?
• Are both pixels installed using the same method and/or in the same location?
  • Are there landing pages that aren't being tracked?
  • Are you running active A/B tests where the pixel was only installed on the control and not the variant?
• Analyze sessions by landing page: where are these extra sessions starting?
• Does GA include native mobile sessions that you aren't tracking with Northbeam?

Answering these questions can help determine if GA and Northbeam are looking at different sets of data, and need to be installed differently to track comparable sessions.

Need additional help?

If you need further assistance, reach out to Support!