FAQ

Corvidae Overview

What does Corvidae track?

Corvidae tracks all traffic which arrives at your website or native apps, so long as you have installed our pixel. Every session, regardless of its origin, is accounted for in our stitching and modeling and can be seen in your Corvidae account. If you are struggling to find specific sessions, ensure that your marketing links are properly tagged for your visibility.

We automatically gather the referrer (e.g. google.com) and any pre-existing utm_campaign, utm_source, and utm_medium parameters. However, if you would like more granular information consider marking your marketing links up with tracking parameters so you can easily find the campaign, medium, source, adtech, and other dimensions in your Corvidae account. For example utm_campaign=my_new_campaign or qc_medium=affiliate.

If you see [unspecified] in your Corvidae account for any of the above dimensions, it means they haven’t bee included in the URL which brought users to your website. In which case it will be necessary to update your links with the parameters you would like to see.

Our standard tracking parameters, which serve most use cases are:

If you pass both utm parameters and qc parameters in the same link, for example utm_medium=cpc&qc_medium=paid our pipeline will ignore the utm_medium and preferentially use qc_medium

What attribution model does Corvidae use?

We partnered with Edinburgh University to develop our unique attribution model.  This patented cookie-free approach uses a custom technique for each customer to understand how people really interact with your marketing and website, the decisions they make, and how those results in conversions and revenue for your business.

How much does Corvidae cost?

Our pricing is customised based on your business and your goals. For more information, check out our Pricing page or get in touch with our team.

Is there a free trial?

We do not currently offer a free trial of Corvidae. However, we do provide you with a Proof of Concept phase to allow you to see the value of Corvidae before committing to the solution.

Is there any customer support included with Corvidae?

Yes, we have a dedicated team of attribution experts on-hand to ensure you get the most out of Corvidae.

How long is the onboarding process?

All it takes is 3 steps to get started with Corvidae, and you’ll be on the road to accurate attribution in just 30 days. Find out how to get started with Corvidae.

Our Attribution Model

Why does Corvidae not use Last-Click?

Last-click is heavily biased towards direct visits. Last non-direct click ignores all the preceding channels and first click rewards only the first touchpoint, meaning marketers can never understand the true value of their marketing mix. It is impossible for them to understand the impact each channel has on total revenue and the customer journey.  

What’s the benefit of Corvidae’s attribution model over Markov or Shapley?

Corvidae attributes revenue to the most granular level possible – the individual visit or impression, and then allows aggregation up to insightful segments. 

Shapley and Markov models cannot handle such a large amount of data points in their operation and the underlying mathematics fail. Read more about this in our blog.

Cookieless Attribution

Why are third-party cookies broken?

Cookies do a poor job of stitching together cross-channel, cross-device user journeys. In fact, we found that as much as 80% of analytics data from the most common analytics packages which heavily rely on the use of cookies (such as GA and Adobe) is inaccurate.

How does Corvidae gather clickstream data without cookies – or browser extensions?

With a first-party pixel. Our pixel uses an Event Stream architecture, meaning it can be deployed in any conceivable environment, including: 

• Website 

• App 

• 3rd-Party impressions where the vendor allows it

• And in custom middleware

Do you use any third parties to build out a device graph?

No. We trialed using device graph and other ID graph data in the early days of Corvidae’s development but found that those data sets added little-to-no incrementality to the model’s accuracy. Today, we use only first-party pixel, AdTech, and other client data, all compliantly collected.

How does the AI within Corvidae work? Does it use first-party cookies or work another way?

No, it uses no cookies at all.  Our attribution model uses AI to understand the difference between a transacting and a non-transacting path to discover which touchpoints are influencing in your customers’ decision-making process. 

Our model is trained to understand each individual customer, demystifying which interactions were important to their decision to buy. 

Allowing Corvidae to tune itself to your customer’s behaviour – rather than making you decide what to value in advance.  You can think of the scoring of the AI as a measurement of the incrementality of each event in the conversion path towards a conversion – or non-conversion. This is the basis of Corvidae’s attributed value. 

Performance Automation

How does Corvidae’s model improve my performance in Google and Meta Ads?

It is less about our model - because we provide different models to suit different scenarios - and more about our patented stitching process. In traditional analytical data which relies on cookies to maintain journey fidelity, the “journey” which Google or Meta Ads can see only includes the last few sessions prior to conversion. If a customer switches device, changes browser, or clears their cookies, every interaction before that point is lost. In this scenario it is only possible to optimise towards buyer activity which exists very close to the end of the funnel.

At Corvidae however, we stitch all interactions across browsing sessions, devices, locations, and across the void of data clearance in a privacy compliant way without the need for cookies. So the data that we send back to Google and Meta Ads gives them a view of their own performance from the final decision stage in the buyer’s journey right back to the awareness stage where user attention, clicks, and impressions, are much cheaper.

At that point it's less a race to the bottom of your budget, and more about capturing your audience’s interest before your competition has a chance.

Security

Is the Corvidae DNS secure?

Setting up a DNS A record for tracking purposes itself does not pose a security risk if done properly. Here are some of the reasons why:

• Limited Scope: An A record simply maps a subdomain (e.g. 'corvidae.[yourdomain].com') to an IP address. This is a standard DNS operation and does not expose sensitive information.

• Secure Protocols: Our tracker uses HTTPS (SSL/TLS) to encrypt the data in transit. This prevents interception and tampering.

• Sensitive Information: The A record does not expose sensitive data. It only points to where the pixel is hosted.

• Privacy: The tracker complies with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) by removing all PII (personal identifiable information).

GDPR Compliance

What is happening with Google Analytics?

The Schrems II ruling in 2020 was a milestone in EU policy regarding consumer data rights.

The EU took the position that Businesses cannot offload responsibility for data compliance onto their technology provider, and instead retain GDPR liability should EU data go outside the EU.

In February 2022, both Austria and France have ruled that Google Analytics is illegal from a GDPR view, as it cannot prevent data passing to the US, and the US security services have provably accessed Google data. It is expected that all EU member states will fall in line with this position over the coming months

Does this mean we should stop using Google Analytics?

While the ruling doesn’t mean that using Google Analytics is illegal, it is strongly recommended that marketers and businesses re-evaluate their current use of GA.

With Universal Analytics being replaced by GA4 for all users next year, it’s a perfect time to re-evaluate your current analytics set up and move away from cookie-based methods.

Pricing

What support services are included?

Bi-weekly insights meetings and full time customer support.

Do you have pricing for agencies?

If you are interested in partnering with Corvidae please contact our Growth Team.

Are integrations included in subscriptions?

A number of third party integrations are ready out of the box. Please see our data source guides for more information. Any custom integrations beyond this scope should be discussed with our team.

How long does it take to get up and running?

All it takes is 3 steps to get started with Corvidae, and you’ll be on the road to accurate attribution in just 30 days.

Are you SOC2 compliant?

While we, as a SaaS platform, do not possess our own SOC2 report, we have a trusted partner who holds a SOC2 report. Our partner, Microsoft, has undergone an independent audit and has obtained a SOC 2 report that validates the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy controls of their services.

Are you GDPR, CCPA, and COPPA compliant?

QueryClick is a Data Controller in terms of the GDPR and UK GDPR and Corvidae is fully compliant with UK and EU GDPR regulation. All personal data is held in our secure systems and is irreversibly hashed to anonymise the data, and only processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way, in accordance with the GDPR, UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.