What is attribution, and why do the figures differ between platforms?
Attribution assigns credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that preceded it. Figures differ because attribution is a modelling choice: each advertising platform credits its own activity, analytics tools apply their own rules and none can see every touchpoint across devices, private browsing or offline conversations. Different totals across platforms are normal.
Common models include last-click, which tends to overvalue branded search and retargeting; first-click, which does the reverse; linear and time-decay models, which spread credit across touchpoints; and data-driven models, which require high volumes of data.
Browser tracking prevention, privacy controls and consent requirements mean a growing share of activity is not visible to client-side tracking. Server-side tracking recovers some of this data.
A practical approach is to compare performance within each platform over time, use a single analytics source for cross-channel comparisons and use self-reported attribution as a check on both.
If the total of channel-reported conversions exceeds actual customers, adjust for double counting before making budget decisions.
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