Attribution

The Short Version

Attribution answers “where did this lead (or order, or deal) come from?” for every conversion you send, and adds it all up by channel, campaign, GeoSwap short link and location. It's honest math: every conversion counts exactly once under every model, so the report always adds up to the conversions credited, and anything it couldn't tie to a visit sits on its own Unattributed line instead of being quietly spread around.

Attribution is part of the Business and Enterprise plans.

How It Works

The GeoSwap script records visits

On every session's landing page (and any page that carries tags), the script notes where the visitor came from: UTM tags, ad click ids, the referrer, and the click id of a GeoSwap short link. Bots are left out. You don't add anything: if the script is on your site, visits are already being collected.

You send conversions

A lead, a sign-up, a purchase, a signed deal. Send them from the page with geoswap.track(), from Shopify checkout with the custom pixel, or from your CRM or server with the API. See Sending conversions.

GeoSwap ties each conversion to the visits before it

Once an hour, conversions that are at least two hours old are matched to earlier visits and credit is split between them with each of the five models. Most conversions are credited within about three hours. Each one is checked again 6, 24 and 72 hours later, in case a late visit shows up.

You read the report

Open Attribution in the dashboard sidebar: conversions by channel, source and medium, campaign and short link, by place, plus cost and ROAS once you add spend. See Reading the report.

What Counts as a Visit

A visit (a “touch”) is a person arriving on one of your sites. GeoSwap keeps:

• UTM tags: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign and friends.
• Ad click ids: gclid, gbraid, wbraid, msclkid, fbclid, ttclid, li_fat_id, twclid and rdt_cid.
• The referrer (a referrer from your own site doesn't count as a source).
• GeoSwap short-link clicks. When a short link points at one of your sites with the script running, GeoSwap adds a click id (gs_c) to the destination, and the script removes it from the address bar straight away. The click and the landing count as one visit, and the report can show the exact link.

Visits are kept for 400 days. Two visits from the same channel less than 30 minutes apart count once, and a journey keeps at most 50 visits (the first one and the latest 49).

How a Conversion Finds Its Visits

GeoSwap matches a conversion to earlier visits using whatever identifiers it carries:

• The visitor id (the gs_vid cookie the script sets). geoswap.track() and the Shopify pixel send it automatically.
• The short-link click id (gs_c) and a per-recipient id (gs_r), for example from an email or mail piece.
• Your CRM contact id, which matches gs_r on per-recipient links.
• A hashed email or phone. A conversion that shares one with another conversion also borrows that one's visits, which is how a journey that starts on a phone and ends on a laptop stays together.

Send as many as you have. Email, phone and address are hashed the moment they arrive and are never stored raw. If a browser blocks cookies, GeoSwap can still tie same-day visits from that browser together.

Five Models, One Setting

Every conversion is credited with all five models at once, so changing your workspace's model in Attribution settings is instant and nothing is re-processed. Each model splits exactly one conversion (and exactly its value) across the visits.

Not sure which to use? Start with the default, then turn on Compare models on Channels to see how much each channel gains or loses compared with last touch.

Lookback Window

Visits up to 180 days before a conversion get credit by default. Admins can set anything from 30 to 365 days in Attribution settings; past conversions are then re-credited with the new window.

Attributed, Direct and Unattributed

Channels

Each visit lands in one channel. Rules are checked in this order and the first match wins (for example a gclid or utm_medium=cpc with a search source is Paid search; utm_medium=email is Email; a referrer from a search engine is Organic search):

Offline campaigns get credit through short links: label a link mail, print or postcard and its clicks count as Direct mail; podcast, ctv/tv/ott and radio work the same way. A QR code on a postcard is a short link too, so the scan shows up in the report.

What It Doesn't Do (Yet)

• It doesn't connect to ad platforms. Spend comes from the Spend page, a CSV or the API, and GeoSwap doesn't send conversions back to Google or Meta.
• No data-driven or media-mix modeling: the five models are rule-based, and they show which visits came before a conversion, not proof that one caused it.
• Safari deletes script-set cookies after 7 days without a visit, so long Safari journeys can lose their early visits. Tracking health on Attribution's Overview shows how much of your traffic that affects.
• Reports can't be read through the API yet; use the dashboard or CSV export.