What Are Exposure Sources?
Exposure sources let you send ad-exposure data into MX8 so it can be matched against survey respondents. This is the foundation of ad-effectiveness research — by linking who saw an ad with how they responded to a survey, you can measure real-world campaign impact.
How exposure data works
Every time a person is exposed to an ad, a record is created that captures at minimum an IP address (plaintext or hashed), a user identifier (UID), and the brand associated with the ad. MX8 stores these records and later matches them to incoming survey responses so you can compare exposed and unexposed audiences.
Two ways to send exposure data
MX8 supports two ingest methods. Which one you choose depends on where your exposure data originates and how much control you need over the delivery process.
Pixel — A lightweight tracking endpoint hosted by MX8. You embed a pixel URL in your ad server or tag manager, and each time the pixel fires it captures an exposure event in real time. Pixel sources are ideal when you want a quick, low-integration setup and your ad platform supports third-party pixel calls.
S3 snapshot — A server-side file-based approach. You upload gzip-compressed CSV files containing exposure records directly into an MX8-managed S3 bucket. S3 snapshot sources are ideal when you already collect exposure data in your own systems and prefer to send it in batch, or when you need to hash IP addresses before they leave your environment.
Key terminology
Source name — A human-readable label for your exposure source. Once created, this cannot be changed.
Dimension — An additional attribute you attach to each exposure record (for example, brand). Dimensions are used as query-parameter keys for pixels and as aggregation buckets in reporting.
Retention days — How long MX8 keeps exposure records for matching. The default is 7 days, but this can be adjusted to suit your campaign timeline.
UID — Your user identifier, up to 128 characters. This is appended to respondent records during matching.
Hashed IP — An IP address that has been run through a hashing algorithm (currently MD5) before being sent to MX8. This lets you avoid transmitting plaintext IP addresses.
Next steps
Creating a Pixel Exposure Source — set up real-time tracking in minutes.
Creating an S3 Snapshot Exposure Source — configure server-side batch delivery.