Q Pixel is a universal tracking code that can be installed easily on your website. Q Pixel enables marketers to fully leverage all aspects of the Quantcast Platform. This includes building audiences and getting insights by consideration, intent, and conversion; activating campaigns to reach audiences who visit different parts of your website; and understanding your customer when planning and forecasting. In this article:
Technical Details
Speed: The Q Pixel is asynchronous; it loads in the background and should not slow down the load time of your page.
Reliability: Quantcast uses a globally distributed server infrastructure. Traffic is routed to the most appropriate server through the use of DNS and BGP techniques to achieve the lowest latency possible.
Trusted & Privacy-Safe: We do not sell your audience or share it with any other advertiser.
Security: Our Internet-facing systems are regularly updated and hardened against attack. We regularly employ outside penetration test companies to test the security of the infrastructure, and use several security measures to restrict network and server access.
Committed to Consumer Transparency & Choice: Quantcast is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and participates in the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program.
Q Pixel Tags
Q Pixel consists of two snippets of JavaScript:
- Base Tag, which is required to track any website activity
- Data Pass-back Tag, which builds upon the base tag to measure specific actions and to capture passed back variables.
You can find the Q Pixel code, create events, and check pixel activity, on the Q Pixel page in the Quantcast Platform. Read Install Q Pixel for more information.
Base Tag
The Base Tag is the foundation of the Q Pixel. It needs to be added to every page of your website in order for data pass-back tags and rule events to function, and to build audience data from all the traffic on your site.
Place the Base Tag into the <head> section of your website so that it is present on all pages you wish to track. Quantcast strongly recommends that all advertisers we work with install our pixel on their entire site, regardless of the nature of the campaign, unless the use of our pixel is not permitted by our Terms and Conditions. The more tag coverage a site has, the stronger your custom audience model will be and the easier it becomes to leverage all Quantcast product offerings. You can also enable Enhanced Matching, which can help you improve the quality and accuracy of the audiences you create in our platform.
For more information on installing the base tag, click here.
If you are using a tag manager, please reference the instructions for your tag manager linked in this section.
Data Pass-back Tag
Rule-Based Event
Once the base pixel is installed, you can create Rule-Based Events to track activity on your website. Rule events enable you to fire events automatically based on URLs visited or user interactions with specific DOM elements.
For example, to observe visits to your website's homepage "www.website.com/homepage", you can create a rule. Name the rule-based event "Homepage", and use the condition "URL" contains "homepage". Once saved, the "Homepage" event will fire anytime "www.website.com/homepage" loads.
Rule Events are configured based on a URL or DOM conditions, and can be added to any page as long as the Q Pixel base tag is implemented. For instructions on how to create rule-based events, click here.
Our tagging best practice article includes guidelines on recommended rule events.
You can verify if a label is firing correctly by using the Verify URL tool on the top right corner of the Q Pixel page.
Data Pass-back Event
Data pass-back events are used for site events that require pass-back of pre-specified variables, such as revenue, product category, or order ID. These events can also be used where an action cannot be tracked using a URL condition, such as a button click. An example use would be a tagging a "Purchase Now" button and passing back revenue and product category.
These events require additional code on top of the base tag. For more information on installing a data pass-back tag, you can read our article on Data Pass-back and Advanced Installation: Full Tag.
Learn More
For more information, please visit the Tagging Section of the Help Center. More information on events are discussed in Track Events. To read about Tagging Best Practices, please see Tagging Best Practices: Overview or Tagging Best Practices: By Vertical