Mobile attribution, without the sales pitch

Separate link requests, attributed installs and in-app events when comparing mobile campaign reports.

19 October 2026 · PAD team

The problem being solved

Someone taps an ad, goes to the store, installs, and opens the app. Nothing carries that person's identity across those steps by default, so attribution is the business of reconnecting the two ends.

Deterministic matching

On Android, the Play install referrer travels through the install itself, so the connection is exact. On iOS there is no equivalent, which is the root of every difficulty that follows.

Probabilistic matching

Without an identifier, vendors match on signals: IP address, device model, OS version and timing. It works statistically at volume and is unreliable for any individual install. Apple discourages it, and it is prohibited outright when the user has denied tracking.

SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit

Apple's own answer: the store reports a conversion to the ad network, with deliberate delays and coarse values so individuals cannot be identified. You get campaign-level truth and lose everything below it.

• Delayed by design, so same-day optimisation is impossible
• Limited campaign identifiers, so granular structures do not fit
• Privacy thresholds suppress small numbers entirely
• No user-level data, ever

What is left that is simple and true

Campaign tokens on the store URL. Apple reports installs against ct in App Store Connect without any SDK, at campaign granularity, for free. It is coarse, but it is deterministic and nobody can take it away.

The measurement nobody sells you

Test the journey from the ad to the store on a phone. Compare link requests with store and attribution reports; a browser event alone cannot confirm that the store opened.