Organic Referrer Attribution
Note
This feature is not yet available in the Airbridge dashboard. Contact your Airbridge CSM to enable it.
Marketing success requires a balanced strategy that encompasses both organic and paid efforts. The dual approach ensures a holistic understanding of the user journey.
Organic referrer attribution provides insights into your owned media and their performance on search engines. This allows conversions that can’t be attributed to ad channels to be still measured with high granularity, mending any possible gaps in attribution.
In the Airbridge dashboard, users who have installed the app without interacting with an advertisement are categorized as “unattributed” with only limited information available. However, by activating organic referrer attribution, you can gain visibility into the search engines the users utilized to discover your app and the website they visited immediately before installing your app.
By having a clearer understanding of the unattributed conversions that can’t be directly associated with paid media, you can identify untapped opportunities for growth.
Let’s say you ran a product launch campaign and observed the results below.
Ad Channel | Open (Web) |
|---|---|
Unattributed | 500 |
Ad Channel A | 100 |
Ad Channel B | 100 |
Total | 700 |
With organic referrer attribution enabled, you can obtain a more detailed breakdown, as shown in the example below.
Ad Channel | Open (Web) |
|---|---|
Unattributed | 50 |
Ad Channel A | 100 |
Ad Channel B | 100 |
Social Media C | 100 |
Search Engine D | 150 |
Blog | 200 |
Total | 700 |
A referrer serves as a digital breadcrumb trail that tells you where a user was before landing on a web page. Airbridge uses referrers to measure your organic performance and provides the attribution results via reports and raw data exports.
The basic structure of a referrer resembles a web address, commonly known as a URL. Components such as the scheme, host, path, and query parameters build a referrer, but the specific composition may vary.
The structure of a referrer typically includes the scheme, host, path, and query parameters, with details about the preceding web page mapped to each component.
The table below shows how Airbridge collects data with referrers. The example referrer is as follows: https://help.airbridge.io/guides/overview?q=ab180.
Referrer Breakdown | Referrer Component | Data Collected |
|---|---|---|
help.airbridge.io | Host | Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the preceding web page; Available as “Channel” in the Airbridge dashboard |
q=ab180 | Query parameter | Search term and any other accessible information; Available as “Term” in the Airbridge dashboard |
/guides/overview | Path | Not yet available in the Airbridge dashboard |
Attention
Referrer information is limited on some platforms. You may not always have access to all the details about the preceding web page.
To enable organic referrer attribution, you must have integrated the Airbridge Web SDK into your website. Below are some attribution scenarios.
You can measure website visits as users are redirected from a third-party web page to your website.
Let’s say a user navigated through a search engine to be redirected to your Airbridge-integrated website. Then, the user made a purchase on the website.
User journey: Web search → Website visit → Conversion
In this case, the search engine can be attributed for the purchase if it qualifies as the winning touchpoint according to the Airbridge attribution model.
You can measure Target Events that take place after users are redirected from your website to your app. You must have prepared the SDK to call the setDeeplinks function.
Let’s say a user navigated through a search engine to be redirected to your Airbridge-integrated website. Then, the user clicked a deep link-embedded button on the website, opened the app store, and installed your app.
User journey: Web search → Website visit → Deep link click → App store open → Conversion (Target Event)
In this case, the search engine can be attributed for the app install if it qualifies as the winning touchpoint according to the Airbridge attribution model.
You can measure HTTP deep link opens as users are redirected from a third-party web page to your app. Universal Links and App Links are the types of HTTP deep links used on iOS and Android, respectively.
Let’s say a user navigated through a search engine and clicked on an HTTP deep link from the search results. Then, the user was redirected to your app, which had already been installed on the device.
User journey: Web search → HTTP deep link click → App open
In this case, the search engine can be attributed for the deep link open if it qualifies as the winning touchpoint according to the Airbridge attribution model.
Attention
To attribute in-app conversions with organic referrer attribution, your Airbridge App SDK should be at a certain version or higher.
Android SDK: Version 2.19.5 or higher
iOS SDK: Version 1.28.0 or higher
With organic referrer attribution enabled, Airbridge can collect touchpoint data from your owned media and search engines. By connecting touchpoints with conversions, Airbridge reconstructs the user journey and determines the winning touchpoint according to the Airbridge attribution model.
Note that organic referrer attribution can’t be used if referrers can’t be collected.
App installs attribution: Organic referrer attribution can’t be used to attribute app installs because no referrer information is available.
Some platforms: Organic referrer attribution can’t be used on some platforms because referrer information is not available or is only available on a limited basis.
Note
Organic referrer attribution setup is not yet available in the Airbridge dashboard. Contact your Airbridge CSM to modify your settings.
Enable organic referrer attribution for specific domains and configure query parameters for specific information. Before setting up organic referrer attribution, refer to this article to integrate the Airbridge Web SDK.
Define the scope of data collection by specifying domains to track. You can either exclude or include a domain, and organic referrer attribution will be enabled only for the included domains. Below is an example scenario of the domain setup.
Let’s say your website, Website B, has the Airbridge Web SDK integrated. A user visited Website A from a search engine and then visited Website B immediately afterward. The user performed a conversion event on Website B.
User journey: Web search → Website A visit → Website B visit (Airbridge SDK integrated) → Conversion
In this case, the attribution results may differ as below, depending on the organic referrer attribution settings.
Organic Referrer Attribution Enabled | Domain Settings for Website A | Attributed Channel |
|---|---|---|
No | N/A | Unattributed |
Yes | Included | Website A |
Yes | Excluded | Search engine |
Attention
Updates to the list of excluded and included domains take time to be reflected in your organic referrer attribution results. For more details, refer to this article.
Referrer structures vary, with each query parameter carrying distinct information. Airbridge allows you to designate parameters to be mapped to Term. For instance, you can view the data collected by selecting the “Term” GroupBy or filter in the Actuals Report.
Below is the default mapping setting:
The
q,query,qt, andpparameters are all mapped to Term.The mapping priority is in the order of
q,query,qt, andp.
You can customize the settings by domain, adding a new parameter to be mapped to Term, or adjusting the mapping priority.
Let’s say you have customized parameter settings for the two domains below:
ab180.co
www.airbridge.io
For ab180.co, the query, q, qt, and p parameters are mapped to Term, and the mapping priority is in the same order. For www.airbridge.io, keyword is the only parameter mapped to Term. For all other domains, default settings are applied.
The table below shows the data collected in this case.
Website Address | Parameter Keys Mapped to Term | Parameter Value Collected |
|---|---|---|
ab180.co?q=example&query=sample |
|
|
ab180.co?q=example&qt=sample |
|
|
www.airbridge.io?keyword=test |
|
|
www.example.com?query=hello&q=world |
|
|
Airbridge provides organic referrer attribution results via reports and raw data exports.
To view the attribution results in the Actuals Report, select the “Touchpoint Generation Type” GroupBy. Under the column of the same name, you will see Organic Referrer, along with other touchpoint data collection methods. You can also use the filter to sort out data whose Touchpoint Generation Type is Organic Referrer. If you want to get the list of fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) of the attributed media sources, select the “Channel” GroupBy.
When exporting raw data, you can select the Touchpoint Generation Type data property or filter by Touchpoint Generation Type.
Organic referrer attribution provides insights into your owned media and their performance on search engines, mending any possible gaps in attribution. However, because referrer information is limited on some platforms, you may not be able to use organic referrer attribution in some cases.
For accurate data collection, review your list of excluded and included domains thoroughly and make sure you have correctly specified the domains to be tracked.
Platform-specific policies and guidelines may occasionally restrict Airbridge from delivering data via Term. In addition, the path of a referrer, which can provide context about the user’s journey within the referring website, is not yet available in the Airbridge dashboard.
The path of a referrer can provide context about the user’s journey within the referring website. While the information is not yet available in the Airbridge dashboard, relevant features are in development and will be introduced in the near future.
Updates to the list of excluded and included domains may take a minimum of 3 days to reflect in your organic referrer attribution results.
Cookies stored are set to be valid for 3 days, and the updates can’t be reflected in cookies that have already been stored.
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