Here is a breakdown of our data sources as well as how they work together to capture the full customer journey.

Frontend Data Source

	Northbeam Pixel	Purchase Events	UTM Parameters	First-Party Cookies
What is it?	A small code snippet embedded in your website.	Northbeam provides a variety of scripts to track conversions. This includes purchases, email sign ups, or even a custom goal.	Tags added to URLs to track where traffic comes from (e.g., ads, emails, social).	Small data files set by the website a user visits.
What does it do?	Collects behavioral data from visitors, including Marketing touchpoints & Pages visited. Feeds data into Northbeam's backend device graph. Tracks complete customer journeys from initial visit to purchase.	These scripts are unique to Northeam. They feed into your device graph and displayed in your dashboard	Helps connect conversion events to the ad or marketing channel that drove them.	Stores login, preferences, and browsing behavior.

How Northbeam tracks using First-Party Cookies

Northbeam sets up first-party tracking using a subdomain (e.g., i.store.com).
This subdomain is owned by your domain, making tracking first-party and not blocked by browsers.
First-party cookies store user data, and pixel events are sent securely to your Northbeam dashboard
This ensures accurate attribution and privacy-compliant tracking without relying on third-party cookies.

Backend Data Source

Shopify Integration
Northbeam natively integrates with Shopify, allowing us to fetch all your order data and establish a reliable revenue source of truth.

We rely on server-side data as the source of truth to ensure we capture all order information—including orders that don’t fire web pixels. This includes:

Offline Orders
Draft Orders
Recurring Subscriptions
Other cases where client-side tracking misses

Connecting Frontend and Backend

Northbeam's data sources work together to give you the most accurate and complete view of customer's journey. Please submit a Support ticket here if you have any further questions.