Touchpoint

Updated 2026-11-02

Definition

A touchpoint is one interaction a person has with your marketing. It could be a website visit, an ad click, an email open, a sales call or a conference booth. An attribution model divides the credit for a sale across touchpoints.

What counts depends on what you can record. A web analytics tool sees visits. An ad platform sees impressions. A CRM may see calls. So "how many touchpoints did it take?" has a different answer in each tool.

Example

This example uses made-up numbers. A buyer arrives from a Google search, reading five pages in 10 minutes. They come back two days later from a newsletter, and read two pages. A week later, they click a Google ad and pay $600.

Counted by session, that's three touchpoints: organic search, email and paid search. The eight pageviews don't add more touchpoints.

Under linear attribution, each touchpoint gets $200.

Had you counted each pageview as a touchpoint, organic search would have earned 5 of 8 shares, or $375. The definition of a touchpoint changes the answer, so check how your tool defines it.

Untracked touchpoints

A podcast mention, a friend's recommendation, or a billboard is a touchpoint that web tracking can't record. Self-reported attribution helps capture them.

How Headstream measures it

In Headstream, one touchpoint is one session. It takes the first pageview of the session, then records the channel, source, campaign and landing page from it. Bots are excluded.

Only sessions inside your lookback window can earn credit. Sessions belong to a person only after a browser is linked to them, such as through an email at signup. That link covers earlier visits from the same browser too. Headstream doesn't count ad impressions, emails opened or calls, so touchpoints are always website visits.