Cross-Device Attribution FAQ

Find answers to common questions about Singular's Cross-Device Attribution. Make sure to read Introduction to Cross-Device Attribution first.

Note: Cross-Device Attribution is an enterprise feature. To learn more about enabling this feature, reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

 

Cross-Device Basics

How does Singular perform cross-device attribution?

Singular uses advertiser-reported IDs to tie different devices to the same user. The advertiser is responsible for establishing identity. We rely on users needing to authenticate to tie together different activities across platforms.

We believe this approach is the most aligned with recent privacy regulations and increasing scrutiny around privacy.

Does Singular connect users across different platforms and/or devices if they haven't authenticated?

No, users have to authenticate, i.e., register or sign in, for us to see that it is the same user.

Is Cross-Device Attribution applicable in a mobile-only product?

Yes, because users often change devices, resulting in your paid campaigns reporting inflated outcomes. Cross-Device Attribution is also relevant for companies running paid advertising for multiple products who often utilize cross-promotion, as you may want to understand which campaigns yield new users vs. not.

Can Singular send events (e.g., real-time postbacks) to partners only for new users?

At this point, we don't provide this capability, and we understand most partners cannot support it yet. We are working with selected partners to understand how this can be supported to fuel optimization. Reach out to your Customer Success Manager with any specific partner requests.

Onboarding

What should I do to start using Singular's cross-device attribution?

First, integrate the Singular SDK in all the relevant platforms. Find the relevant SDKs in our SDK Section. Make sure every SDK implementation is properly reporting Custom User IDs to Singular. These are the calls that allow us to identify users.

Then, use our tracking link tools for mobile and web to leverage our data governance capabilities and ensure data is tracked with the right parameters that will later allow for clean, normalized reporting.

Do you support historical imports of user attribution data?

Yes. A core differentiator of Singular as a mobile attribution provider is the ability to import your historical device data.

For cross-device, we've extended this capability to users as well as devices. This is important in order to ensure that both device-based cohorts and user-based cohorts are aligned with your data before you start using Singular's attribution solution.

How can I see events and revenue broken down by platform?

You can customize your events using our Custom Events page. For example, you may want to define a Web Revenue event that captures revenue on the website, and a Mobile Revenue event that captures revenue on all mobile platforms altogether. Alternatively, you could also break down revenue individually by platform. The same logic can be applied for any type of event, to provide full visibility into what your campaigns are yielding across every platform.

Advanced Topics

What is the difference between web-to-app tracking to cross-device attribution?

In web-to-app tracking, users on the mobile web interact with a banner to either install or open the mobile app (often utilizing deferred deep links and Universal/App links), moving from the mobile web to a mobile app in a single continuous session. In this scenario, users are often anonymous when visiting the website, but the link placed in the banner allows for accurate tracking with a mobile tracking link.

Cross-device attribution does not necessarily involve a banner, and the user may interact with different platforms at very different times. Cross-device is also relevant when one of the platforms is a desktop computer.

Can you calculate cohorts based on the last time the user has engaged with an ad, as opposed to the first?

Today we only calculate cohorts based on registration (sign-up). However, supporting this scenario is on our roadmap. If this is of interest to you, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to let us know.