Path to purchase report
This report explains how your Criteo paid media channels work together before a purchase.
Path to Purchase highlights the common channel sequences associated with reported conversions, adding cross-channel context beyond last-click reporting.
Before you start
Your campaigns must be live or have generated data.
The report uses media interactions that can come from 0 to 30 days before the purchase. Attribution windows are PC30d PV30d.
Results are shown at the media channel level, rather than by individual campaigns or creatives.
The report covers Criteo paid media interactions.
Available channels depend on your account. Can be available Open Web display, Open Web OLV, CTV, Social, ChatGPT Ads.
What does the report show?
The report can show:
Top paths to purchase and their path share.
Sales, revenue, and average order value.
The most frequent channel in a path.
First-channel and last-channel patterns.
Post-click 30-day and post-view 30-day path views.
Path share shows how common a path is within the reported conversion journeys included in the report.
A path can include multiple channels, for example, CTV, Social, and Open Web, before a shopper converts on your website, app, or retailer site.
When should I use Path to Purchase?
Use the report when you want to:
Understand how supported media channels appear together before a reported conversion.
Identify which channels tend to appear earlier, in the middle, or later in reported paths.
Evaluate opportunities to diversify your channel mix.
Add cross-channel context to last-click or channel-level reporting.
Form hypotheses for future budget allocation or testing.
Why activate across channels?
Activating multiple supported channels can help you reach shoppers at different stages of the journey. In Criteo’s analysis, cross-channel activation generated up to 20% higher sales than single-channel activation. Results may vary depending on campaign setup, audience, market, and measurement approach.
How should I use the report?
Start with the top paths and their path share.
Review which channels appear first, most frequently, and last.
Review sales, revenue, and average order value to identify the paths most relevant to your business.
Use the findings to inform channel-mix discussions and create hypotheses for future testing.
About the attribution windows
PC30 includes a conversion that occurs within 30 days after an ad click.
PV30 includes a conversion that occurs within 30 days after an ad view, when no qualifying click takes precedence.
How does Path to Purchase work?
Path to Purchase combines directly observed signals with statistical modelling to provide a more complete view of paid media journeys.
Observed journeys
The report starts with journeys that Criteo can directly connect from a paid media interaction to a conversion. These observed journeys provide the foundation for the report.
When direct visibility is incomplete
Some media environments have limited visibility from ad interaction to conversion because of privacy restrictions, identity limitations, or interactions that happen after an ad view without a click. This is particularly relevant for Social and ChatGPT Ads.
Where direct identity signals are incomplete, Criteo uses statistical modeling to estimate the missing signal based on observed activity.
Sales are not added to the total
Within the Path to Purchase view, modelling reallocates existing reported sales across relevant paths. It does not increase the client’s overall reported sales total.
How should I interpret the results?
Path to Purchase is a journey-reporting view, not a new attribution model. It helps you understand common paths before conversion; it does not distribute causal credit across channels.
The report does not prove that a channel caused a sale or generated incremental impact. When you need to measure causal impact, for example, whether a sale would have happened without a specific channel, use an appropriate incrementality approach.
Results may differ from GA4, Adobe, or individual media-platform reports because reporting systems can use different attribution models, attribution windows, identity coverage, and definitions of success. Use Path to Purchase alongside your agreed source of truth when evaluating performance.
How to access the report
In Commerce Growth:
From the left navigation panel, select Analytics.
Select Exploring.
Select Path to purchase.