Tracking & optimisation · also called conversion attribution, revenue attribution
Attribution
Attribution is the process of deciding which ad, click or traffic source gets the credit for a conversion or a piece of revenue.
Money came in. Which ad earned it? Attribution is the set of rules and data used to answer. Without it, a buyer knows total spend and total revenue but not which campaigns to grow and which to stop.
In ordinary e-commerce attribution is hard because a customer may see many ads over weeks. In search arbitrage the journey is short, usually one session lasting minutes, so the question is simpler: which bought click led to which feed revenue? The difficulty lies elsewhere. Google's search feeds do not report revenue per individual click. They report by Channel ID, country, device, day and similar groupings. Trackers therefore estimate, spreading each group's revenue across the clicks inside it. ClickFlare, for example, describes modelling click-level revenue from the feed's breakdowns.
So arbitrage attribution is partly measured and partly modelled, and each system has its own version. The ad platform credits conversions under its own rules and attribution window; the tracker under its rules. They rarely agree exactly. The feed's statement and the platform's invoice are the facts; attribution is the best available story connecting them.
Think of it like this
Several waiters served a table that left one tip. Attribution is the house rule for dividing it.
Related terms
Attribution window
An attribution window is the period after an ad click or view during which a resulting conversion is still credited to that ad.
Tracker (campaign tracking platform)
A tracker is software that records every click an arbitrageur buys, matches it to the revenue it later earns, and reports profit by campaign, ad and keyword.
Click ID
A click ID is a unique code an ad platform or tracker attaches to each ad click so that later events can be matched back to that exact click.
Postback (server-to-server tracking)
A postback is a message sent directly from one company's server to another's to report that a tracked click produced a conversion or revenue.
Keyword-level reporting
Keyword-level reporting breaks down clicks and revenue by the individual keyword or related search term the visitor clicked on the landing page.
Channel ID (custom channel)
A channel ID is a label attached to search ad requests so that revenue and clicks can be reported separately for each page, campaign or traffic source.