Attribution Window

What is the definition of Attribution Window?

An attribution window is an important tool that helps mobile marketers understand how their campaigns are performing and how they’re converting customers. It is defined as the timeframe (days or hours) that’s used to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.

It’s the period of time between when a customer is exposed to an advertisement and when they make a purchase or complete some other desired action, such as an install. In the mobile marketing universe specifically, it is the time frame in which clicks and impressions will be considered as leading to an install.

The attribution window is also used to measure the effectiveness of different ad networks i.e. if the user installed the app after clicking, or viewing, an advertisement from a certain ad network within the predefined attribution window, this ad network will be credited for the install. However, the methods of attributing an install to an ad network differ in different mobile measurement tools and analytics platforms. The most common method of attribution today, however, is last-click attribution.

Why is the attribution window important?

Sometimes users don’t install the app immediately after clicking or seeing the ad and there could be a gap between the two actions. Having a tailored attribution window for your campaigns enables proper attribution of the installs to the right source, and eliminates false organic users.

Having an attribution window also allows you to measure the performance or the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns over different time periods, and across different channels and platforms.

What is an example of an Attribution Window?

A mobile app developer is running an in-app advertising campaign to promote their new game. The app developer decides to use an attribution window of seven days, which means that any user that downloads the game within seven days of seeing the ad will be attributed as a result of the campaign. After seven days, the campaign will no longer attribute any new users to the ad. This allows the app developer to accurately measure the effectiveness of their in-app advertising and make adjustments to their campaigns based on the results.

Attribution Windows at Tenjin

By default, the click attribution window at Tenjin is 7 days, and the view-through attribution window is 1 hour. The attribution windows can be configured for independent channels or campaigns. You can read more about how to set up the attribution window here.