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Attributing revenue to channels

Reading first-touch, last-touch and linear credit over your recorded touchpoints and conversions, why some conversions are unattributed, and why two currencies are never added together.

Updated

Attribution shows how credit for your recorded conversions falls across channels, under three models at once: first touch, last touch and linear. All three are shown together on purpose, because the difference between them is the useful part.

The three models are allocation rules, not causal claims. First touch gives the whole conversion to the earliest recorded touchpoint's channel; last touch gives it to the latest; linear splits it equally, with the remainder going to the last touchpoint so the total is preserved exactly.

Touchpoints and conversions are recorded through the workspace API by your own integration. Nothing in Social Studio collects them from a platform.

BEFORE YOU START

  • The "view" permission for the workspace to read the report, and "create" or "edit" to record touchpoints and conversions through the API.
  • Touchpoints and conversions already recorded. Nothing arrives on its own.
  • A contact id on both. A conversion is matched to touchpoints by contact and by nothing else.

STEPS

  1. Open Attribution for the workspace, or go to /app/workspaces/{workspace}/attribution.
  2. Read the line under the heading: how many conversions were recorded and what they total.
  3. Read the coverage line. It says how many conversions had an attributable touchpoint and how many did not.
  4. Read the table. Rows are channels; the three columns are the three models. A channel that a model gave nothing is a real zero, not a blank.
  5. Where more than one currency has been recorded, read the "Per currency" section underneath. Each currency is totalled on its own.
  6. Compare the columns. Where first touch and last touch disagree strongly, the channels that open conversations and the ones that close them are different.

WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE

A table of channels with three columns of credit that each add up to the same conversion count, and a coverage line that accounts for every conversion, including the ones nothing could be attributed to.

WHAT THIS WILL NOT DO

  • It will not attribute an anonymous conversion. A conversion with no contact, or with no touchpoint recorded before it, is credited to "unattributed" under all three models and counted in the coverage line.
  • It will not convert between currencies. This system holds no exchange rate and no rate date, so a workspace recording in two currencies has no single total. Conversion counts are unaffected.
  • It will not link a conversion to an offer, product or campaign. Conversions link to a contact and to nothing else, so recorded revenue cannot be traced to what was being promoted.
  • It will not filter by date on this page. The report covers everything recorded. Date windows exist on the API only.
  • It will not claim a cause. A model saying a channel got the credit is the model's rule, not a finding.

IF IT DOES NOT WORK

  • "No conversions recorded yet - attribution shows zeroes until touchpoints and conversions are recorded." means nothing has been recorded for this workspace.
  • A warning saying "This workspace records conversions in GBP and USD, so there is no single total." is not a fault. It is followed by the per-currency tables, and the totals it declines to print show as "Not totalled".
  • "view permission required." and "create or edit permission required." are the two refusals from the API.
  • "You do not have access to this workspace." means your access does not reach it.
  • Being sent back to /app means you are not an active member of the organisation.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Which model should I believe?

None of them alone. Each is a rule for splitting credit, and reading them together tells you more than picking one. Where they agree, the reading is stable; where they disagree, the channel that starts a journey is not the one that finishes it.

Why is so much unattributed?

Because those conversions carried no contact, or no touchpoint had been recorded for that contact before the conversion happened. It is a gap in what was recorded, not a channel that performed badly.

Does the mobile screen show the same thing?

It shows the same report, read only, without the per-currency breakdown. In a workspace that records more than one currency the mobile figures are not the ones to rely on; use the web page, which states plainly that the amounts cannot be added.

  • Reading your reporting

    What the workspace report totals, why a figure can say "Not reported" instead of zero, and the two ways a figure reaches it.

  • What your recorded results support

    Reading the performance recommendations, the sample size every claim must clear, and the list of questions the recorded data cannot answer.

  • Building your Command Centre

    Arranging the widgets on your Today page, what each panel counts, and the ten widgets that are declared and cannot be added because nothing computes them.