Learning Outcomes
Learn more about the data sources that you can use in TRAC.
TRAC offers the ability to collect data from many different data sources, each with its own features and limitations.
For each data source, we will address the following :
What do we collect? Explaining what data comes from each source and how it is categorized on the platform, as well as explaining things we don't collect when they are related to things we do collect.
Historics? Tells you if we collect historics for a given source and for how far back they are retrievable.
Other special rules? Detailing any other helpful information about the source, as well as linking to any articles that elaborate further on a given source.
🚨Important: Engagements and Impressions metrics are defined differently for CORE and TRAC.
For more details on Engagements and Impressions on TRAC, see the following pages
Ali Express (Reviews)
An online retail service based in China that is owned by Alibaba.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Amazon (Reviews)
Online retail site popular for their fast shipment options.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Baidu (Forums)
Large internet force in China and other Asian countries, also home to forums.
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Forums section for any other special rules.
Blogs
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
Blogs must meet certain requirements to be included in our collection. Check out the link below to see those requirements.
If a blog you want to add meets our requirements, you can always request us to have it added!
Discord (Panels Searches)
What Do We Collect?
The comment - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Reactions - the reactions for each piece of content
Top 5 Reactions -Explicit counts of the top 5 reactions
Author - Which user authored the comment
The Replies - For thread type discord content, we collect the replies as well
Historics?
No Historics available, realtime only!
Other Special Rules?
Discord servers must be owned, as you must be able to add the bot to your server in order to track it
You can choose which channels to track and which not to track; you don't have to track an entire server!
Expedia (Reviews)
Travel site that hosts reviews as well as booking options.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Popular social media site where users can share photos, videos, and other content on their timelines, on public/private pages, and in groups.
What Do We Collect?
Public Pages Only - We cannot collect data from private Facebook Pages, Profiles, Groups, Event Pages, Stories.
Post - We collect the content of the post.
Comment Count - Topic Searches - we only collect a count of comments where applicable, not the actual comments themselves.
Comments: Panel Searches - we are able to collect the actual comments.
Number of Likes - we get a count of likes the post has received, which includes the reactions.
Number of Reactions - Panel Searches Only - we get a count of how many reactions the post has received and sort on those reactions (visible by hovering over like button in Results).
Historics?
Topic Searches: Historics for the past 30 days are available .
Panel Searches: No historics available.
Other Special Rules?
Location and Age Restrictions: Panel Search - Sometimes Pages are Location and Age-restricted in such a way that users that aren't a certain age or aren't members of a particular country may not be able to see content from those Pages. Because tokens are effectively lenses through which to simulate a view of Facebook, if a given token is from a user profile that doesn't meet one of the requirements, the Page data won't be collected. This is why it is always good to diversify the types of tokens you add, especially if you're going to be dealing with location-specific Pages, or Pages that might be age-locked.
Keyword Restrictions - in the Facebook keyword box during search setup in TRAC, you are limited to 20 groups of keywords and only OR and AND operators are permitted. Read more here.
Previewing Historics for Facebook also can have some confusion because of Preview's inability to distinguish on location, language, etc. To read more about this click here.
Facebook Topic Keywords are entered into a separate field in a TRAC Topic search. Read more about this here.
Forums
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on Forums.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Exclusions?
Authors cannot be excluded from data pulls, only keywords
Other Special Rules?
Forums must meet certain requirements to be included in our collection. Check out the link to see those requirements.
If a forum you want to add meets our requirements, you can always request us to have it added!
Photo and Video-based social media site with an emphasis on visual content, "stories" that contain streams of posts that expire after a set window, and hashtags that allow for users to get exposure for their public posts globally by keyword.
What Do We Collect?
Posts - we collect the Instagram post data.
Post Likes - a count of the number of likes on a post.
Post Comment Count - a count of the number of comments on the post.
Post Comment Text - only available for Instagram Tagged Media content.
Historics?
No Historics availble, just realtime.
Other Special Rules?
Hashtag Search Limitations - hashtag tracking on Instagram is very particular. We have a whole article dedicated to dealing with questions concerning it. This includes a new recent restriction on Hashtags that are not available to be searched. Check it out here.
Naver (Forums)
South Korean online platform that has forum posting.
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on mostly Facebook.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Forums section for any other special rules.
Online News
What Do We Collect?
The Article - we collect the physical article itself
Author Name - the name of the article's author
Outlet Name - the publisher's name
Outlet URL - The domain of the outlet
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on mostly Facebook.
AVE - Advertising value equivalency (AVE) is a way in which public relations and communications agencies measure the impact of media coverage.
Historics?
FR News (CFC): previous 24 months
Global News (LexisNexis): previous 60 days
All other licenses: previous 12 months
Licensing
We support NLA, CLA, CFC and Lexis Nexis. If you're interested in learning more please reach out to your account manager or check out our article on News Licenses
Pinterest is an image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information, specifically "ideas" on the internet using images, animated GIFs, and videos, in the form of pinboards.
What Do We Collect?
a regular pin
an article pin
a product pin
a recipe pin
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 30 days.
Podcast
Podcast is a broadcast source that match on 1-minute clips and can be selected and edited based on what the user wishes to save. Topics Searches Only
What Do We Collect?
Location (of the site published)
Language
Alexa Rank (of the site published)
Duration
Historics?
We collect full access historics (video clip, web player) for the last 60 days. These expire at this period and stop being accessible.
We collect the transcripts for up to 2 years
Other Special Rules?
Podcast is a premium source meaning you will need special access in order to use it. Contact your account manager if you would like access
Podcast uses a special web player to edit clips and save them
Podcast data is only available on Topic searches
For more info on Broadcast sources like Podcast, check out the FAQ below
Print News
What Do We Collect?
The Article - we collect the physical post itself.
Author Name - the name of the article's author
Outlet Name - The publisher's name
AVE - Advertising value equivalency (AVE)
Page number - the page number where the article was published
Historics?
UK & FR Print (NLA) - 6 Months
Global Print (Lexis Nexis) - 60 days.
Other Special Rules?
UK/FR Print (NLA)
Display restriction: 256 Characters. Full Article is available via the NLA website for up to 28 days
Data collection for NLA Print content is embargoed between 12am and 4am (GMT). This means that we are not permitted to deliver NLA print content via Pulsar between these hours
Global Print (LexisNexis)
Full-text article is available on the platform
Data to be deleted after 90 days from all searches
Radio
Radio is a broadcast source that match on 1-minute clips from various radio stations and can be selected and edited based on what the user wishes to save.
What Do We Collect?
Broadcast Location
Language
Duration
AVE
In addition to the data listed above, ANZ/SEA broadcast sources provide the following:
Channel Name
Program Type
Region
Actual Media Reach
Potential Media Reach
Duration
Historics?
We collect full access historics (video clip, web player) for the last 60 days. These expire at this period and stop being accessible.
We collect the transcripts for up to 2 years
Other Special Rules?
Radio is a premium source meaning you will need special access in order to use it. Contact your account manager if you would like access.
Radio uses a special web player to edit clips and save them.
For more info on Broadcast sources like Radio, check out the FAQ below
Popular forum website that allows users to discuss various topics based on sub-reddits, rating posts by either giving an "upvote" or "downvote".
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the physical post itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this post's URL has been shared on major sites.
Replies to Posts are collected as separate posts themselves.
The "Upvotes" - upvote count collected as likes for reddit posts
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
We now have the ability to look at subreddits specifically! This can be done using the Panel Search option. If you're interested in Reddit Panel Searches check out the article here:
Reddit Panel searches have a limit of up to 50 subreddits
Filtering by subreddit within a topic search is also possible using the domain filter
Reddit does not have location filtering, meaning you will always be receiving posts globally if you select Reddit as a data source.
Reviews
User-created posts from various sources often giving a rating for products, stores, services, etc.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on major sites.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
Review Location is based on the review site's domain location Not the author's location.
Reviews rarely contain the name of the company in the review themselves. This means it's rather difficult to search for all reviews for a particular company across review sites. While some sites do contain metadata that indicates what company they are for, thus allowing us to collect them, often more than not, reviews will not be collected unless the keyword you are looking for is mentioned explicitly within the review body or title.
Review Sites must meet certain requirements to be included in our collection. Check out the link to see those requirements.
You can see examples of review sites we collect here. If a review site you want to add meets our requirements, you can always request us to have it added!
TaoBao (Reviews)
Chinese online shopping website that allows for product reviews.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on mostly Facebook.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Threads
Instagram's new text app for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.
What Do We Collect?
Original Posts
Replies
Reposts
Images
Videos
Number of Likes
Number of Replies
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 30 days.
Other Special Rules?
Engagements
We show the total number of engagements the post has collected but we'll only pull In the engagements that match the search's query.
TripAdvisor (Reviews)
A user-review site designed around destinations for touring and travel.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
Number of Shares - number of times this review's URL has been shared on mostly Facebook.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Trustpilot (Reviews)
A user-review site for reviewing businesses worldwide.
What Do We Collect?
The Review - we collect the physical review itself.
We collect the Review rating on a scale of 1 to 100.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See Reviews section for any other special rules.
Tumblr (Blogs)
Popular blog-site where users can make various posts and follow other users within different fandoms, topics, etc.
What Do We Collect?
The Post - we collect the content of the Tumblr post.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 25 months.
Other Special Rules?
See "Blogs" for any other special rules.
TV (Television)
TV is a broadcast source that match on 1-minute clips from various television channels and can be selected and edited based on what the user wishes to save.
What Do We Collect?
Broadcast Location
Language
Duration
AVE
In addition to the data listed above, ANZ/SEA broadcast sources provide the following:
Channel Name
Program Type
Region
Actual Media Reach
Potential Media Reach
Duration
Historics?
We collect full access historics (video clip, web player) for the last 60 days. These expire at this period and stop being accessible.
We collect the transcripts for up to 2 years
Other Special Rules?
TV is a premium source meaning you will need special access in order to use it. Contact your account manager if you would like access.
TV uses a special web player to edit clips and save them
For more info on Broadcast sources like TV, check out the FAQ below
Twitch
Twitch is the world’s largest live video streaming platform. It's an interactive live streaming service for content creators spanning gaming, entertainment, sports, music, and more.
What Do We Collect?
Title - video stream's title
Video Views - number of views for the stream
Author's Username - streamer's username
Author's No. of followers - streamer's total followers
Author's Profile Views - total number of views the author has built up
Historics?
We collect historics for the last 30 days.
We do not collect:
Comments / Live Chat
Videos
Video Duration
Author Bio
X (Twitter)
Social media site designed around small, fast posting. Users can like and retweet (share), as well as reply to other users' tweets.
What Do We Collect?
Tweets - We collect original tweets.
Likes - We collect the likes for a tweet but only for historics.
Retweets - collected as separate engagements.
Ouote tweets
Historics?
We collect historics as far back as March 21, 2006 on X.
We DO NOT collect historics for Panel Bio searches, only real-time is available
Other Special Rules?
Number-Only Hashtags: Because of how hashtags function on X, we cannot search for hashtags that are just a number. e.g. If you wanted to search for data about "Jackie Robinson" and his player number "#42", you would not be able to search for instances of #42, as it would collect any mention of the number 42 anywhere from X. For instance, "I ate 42 eggs today" would be collected by a search of "#42".
No Audience Demographic AI Module: Due to X's terms of service, we cannot use our audience demographic AI module to analyze X data
VK
Russian social media site with over 100 million active users.
What Do We Collect?
Post - We collect the post itself
Shares - We collect whenever a post is shared.
Number of Comments - total count of comments on a post.
Actual Comments - the content of the comments on a post.
Number of Likes - total count of the number of likes on a post.
Historics?
We Collect historics as far back as January 1st, 2018.
Other Special Rules?
For other special rules, check out the article about the VK launch.
Web Search Data
Comes from Bing search engine and Google
What Do We Collect?
We collect instances of keywords or URLs showing up in a given search. They are displayed as a green dashed line on your dataset in TRAC.
Historics?
No historics collected.
Other Special Rules?
We can only collect global data for Web Search, meaning if you have any location filters you cannot also choose web search data as an option
For other special rules, check out the article about the Search data sources.
Youtube
Video-posting platform where content creators can upload and monetise their content based on views, as well as livestream.
What Do We Collect?
Actual Video Post - We collect the actual video from the site.
Video Caption - the caption underneath the video.
Actual Comments: TRAC Only - We collect the actual comments from the video.
Comment Counts - Collect a count of comments on videos.
Like Counts: CORE Only - Collect a count of likes for videos.
Video Views: CORE Only - Collect a count of views of the video.
Historics?
We collect historics for the last fifteen months.
Other Special Rules?
Location is not available for YouTube so all YouTube data collected will be labeled as "unknown" location.
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