Attribution Models

Written by Jusang Song,

Users are exposed to numerous advertisements prior to installing an app or making an in-app purchase (conversion). Throughout this user journey, the act of clicking or viewing an ad is considered a 'Touchpoint', whereas specific actions such as app installation or in-app purchase is considered as 'Conversion'. Attribution Model is a methodology that analyzes which touchpoint(s) is/are responsible for inducing a user to install an app or to perform target conversion events.

There are a variety of attribution models namely Last Click, First Click, Linear, and more. Airbridge employs the Last Click Attribution Model by default with several attribution rules and touchpoint priority rules together. This means, that even though a touchpoint is the last touchpoint, it needs to meet other rules such as fulfilling the attribution rule or it being the highest priority. Out of all the valid touchpoints recorded up to the converted event, the final selected touchpoint that satisfies all the rules is called the 'Winning Touchpoint'.

Target Event 

Target events refer to either App Install or Deeplink Open events which trigger subsequent event occurrences.

The target event is attributed to the winning touchpoint out of all other valid touchpoints that occurred within the lookback window. 

Subsequent Event

Subsequent events are the events that occur following App Install or Deeplink Open event; it includes all In-app events such as App Open, Add-to-Cart, and/or Purchase. 

Subsequent events are attributed to the winning touchpoint of the target event that leads to the subsequent events.

The Highest credit and priority will be given to the touchpoint that meets the following attribution requirements.

1. It must neither be a fraudulent install event nor a fraudulent touchpoint.

   • Airbridge provides a variety of safeguards to detect and analyze potential fraudulent conversion events. You can also separately check whether these events fall into the fraud validation rule that you configured previously in the Airbridge dashboard.

   • A fraudulent install event will be recorded as unattributed.

2. Only the touchpoints that occur within the lookback window will be reviewed for attribution.

   • A lookback window is a period of time after an ad is clicked or viewed (touchpoints) within which an install event can be attributed to the ad. For instance, if the lookback window is set to 7 days, the touchpoints that occurred within 7 days prior to the conversion will be reviewed for eligibility as a winning touchpoint. The lookback window for install can be configured in the dashboard.

   • See Lookback window for Install setting

      

Airbridge prioritizes touchpoint attribution for the install events based on the rules below. Should several touchpoints hold equal priority, the latest created touchpoint will take the credit in accordance with the Last Click Attribution Model.

1. Touchpoints are prioritized based on their collected path.

   1. The highest priority goes to the touchpoint generated by Airbridge Tracking Link or Self-Attribution Network(Google Ads, Apple Search Ads).

   2. The second priority goes to the touchpoint collected via the automatic UTM parsing function.

   3. The third priority goes to the Call-To-Action button (web to app connectivity) in the Airbridge Web SDK installed web page.

        See [setDownloads, setDeeplinks setting]

2. 'Click' is always given higher priority over 'Impression'.

3. Device Matching (Referrer, Deeplink Matching, or ID Matching) is always given higher priority over Probabilistic Modeling Matching as Device Matching has higher accuracy.

   • See [Airbridge Identity Matching Logic]

      

• Scenario 1

  

1. Must be within the lookback window

   → 'A Channel' Click is eliminated.

2. 'Click' has higher priority than 'Impression'

   →'B Channel' Impression is eliminated.

3. The latest touchpoint will take the credit in case of touchpoints holding the same priority level.

   → 'B Channel' Click is eliminated.

4. ⇒ The winning touchpoint for the install event goes to 'C Channel' Click.

The deep-linking event generally occurs almost instantly (less than 1 second) right after the tracking link is clicked. Thus, the 'click' touchpoint will be the winning touchpoint. However, it can also be recorded as 'unattributed' if that touchpoint was detected as fraudulent or the deep-linking event occurred without a tracking link (i.e. travels from page to page within an app).

1. It must NOT be a fraudulent deep-linking event.

   • Airbridge provides a variety of safeguards to detect and analyze potential fraudulent conversion events. You can also separately check whether these events fall into the fraud validation rule that you configured previously in the Airbridge dashboard.

   • Fraudulent install events will be recorded as unattributed.

Airbridge defines in-app events as subsequent events that only occur after App-install or Deeplink Open event. Hence, the attribution for subsequent events is credited to the last install or deep-linking event immediately before the subsequent event occurs.

1. It must NOT be a fraudulent in-app event.

   • Airbridge provides a variety of safeguards to detect and analyze potential fraudulent conversion events. You can also separately check whether these events fall into the fraud validation rule that you configured previously in the Airbridge dashboard.

   • Fraudulent in-app events will be recorded as unattributed.

2. Only in-app events that occur within the attribution window for the Install or Deep-linking event can be attributed.

   • The attribution window in Airbridge is a time frame that starts from an app install or a deep link open event. The in-app events within the attribution window are used to measure the success of the ad that led to the app install or the deep link open.

   • SeeAttribution Window Setting

      

• Scenario 1

  

  • The above is the most basic in-app event attribution scenario. 'Sign-up' and 'Sign-in' events are attributed to App install event as they occurred within the attribution window. However, 'Add to Cart' and 'Purchase' event will be recorded as 'unattributed' as they failed to fall into the attribution window.

• Scenario 2

  

  • The default attribution window for install and deep-linking event is 30 days and 3 days respectively. In the above scenario, 'Sign-in' and 'Purchase' events will be attributed to the Install event. On the other hand, 'Add to Cart' event will be attributed to deep-linking event as deep-linking event is a more recent event for 'Add to Cart' event.

1. When a user visits an Airbridge Web SDK-installed website, our Web SDK automatically fetches the touchpoints that induced the user to visit the website. The possible touchpoint path is described as the following:

   1. 'Website visit' event via Airbridge Tracking Link.

   2. UTM information of the visited website address via UTM automatic parsing feature.

      • Airbridge Web SDK - UTM automatic parsing feature

2. The touchpoint given credit for the website visit is also given credit for subsequent web conversions.

3. If there was no touchpoint that induced the user to visit a website, the web conversion event will be recorded as unattributed.

1. Only the web conversion event that occurs within the attribution window will be attributed.

   • The attribution window in Airbridge is a time frame that starts from the ad that led to the user’s website visit. The subsequent web conversions within the attribution window are used to measure the success of the ad that led to the user’s website visit.
     If the attribution window is set to 3 days, the website touchpoint that occurred within 3 days after the website visit event will be attributed to the web conversion event.

   • The default attribution window for web visit touchpoint is 3 days.

   • See Web Visit Touchpoint Attribution Window setting

Web Conversion Events are prioritized based on their path of touchpoints. In case any touchpoint has the same priority, the latest created touchpoint will take the credit in accordance with the Last Click Attribution Model.

1. The highest priority goes to the Airbridge Tracking Link of the website visit.

2. The second priority goes to the touchpoint collected via the automatic UTM parsing function.

• Scenario 1

  

  • This is one of the scenarios where a user visits a website with Airbridge's Web SDK installed, and then performed a series of in-app events. Any in-app events within the attribution window of 3 days, will be attributed to the website visit touchpoint (Tracking link 'click'). However, the rest of the in-app events out of attribution windows (in this scenario, 'Purchase' event) will be recorded as unattributed.

• Scenario 2

  

  • This is a scenario where a user visited the website several times. The attribution for 'Sign-in event' will be given to the 'visit website' for the first time. And the attribution for 'Add to Cart' and 'Purchase' events will be given to the second website visit.