What is attribution? Deterministic attribution and last click
Short answer: Attribution decides which ad click an install or purchase belongs to. Deterministic attribution relies only on a provable identifier match and does not guess.
Why attribution is hard
A user may have seen other channels before clicking your ad. Deciding which channel earned the conversion is the basis of budget decisions across channels.
Deterministic and probabilistic
- Deterministic: If the click identifier matches the install, the match is certain.
- Probabilistic: Signals such as IP, device model or time are used to estimate a match. It can be wrong.
Attrely uses only deterministic matching. If there is no match, the install is not credited, which keeps reports conservative.
Last-click model
In a last-click model the conversion is credited to the last ad click before it. In Attrely, the valid click is the most recent campaign click within the attribution window (7 days by default).