Why Does the Sum of Outbound Clicks and Social Clicks Not Match the Total Engagement Clicks in Campaign Reporting?

The general "Engagement Click" metric is what we also call the "Primary Click."

The Primary click is the first unique click on the ad. It can be any click on the ad. It can be any “type” of action click - pause/play, swipe, left click, right click, outbound click, social icon click, social interaction click etc.

The DSP and Ad server also measures this click and uses this number to calculate Engagement Rate (The total number of Engagement Clicks divided by Ads Rendered (impressions). It counts unique engagements per impression to avoid duplicating interactions from the same user session. It is not duplicated in our platform.

This is NOT “total clicks" so the sum of the outbound clicks and Social clicks will not match the “Click” metric.

So, for example, let's say there is a video unit running. A user clicks on the pause button - it will register a "Primary Click" but it will not register an Outbound click. If the user presses play again, it will NOT register a Primary click, it will NOT register an Outbound click.

Then on the same impression if the user now clicks on the CTA button and he is taken to the landing page on a different tab then an "Outbound click" will be registered - there will be NO more primary clicks counted for the same impression.

Further on the same impression if the user comes back to the ad (without refreshing it) and now clicks on the Social icon to go to the social brand page then a "Social Click" will be registered and there will be no more Primary clicks and Outbound clicks counted.

So, now we have 1 Primary click, 1 Social click and 1 Outbound click of the same impression.

Therefore, the sum of Social clicks and Outbound clicks will never be equal to Engagement Clicks because "Engagement Click" is actually the first unique "Primary click" and not the sum of all clicks on the unit.

For more information regarding clicks and campaign reporting, please visit the following articles:

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