At a glance: Learn about the reasons for differences in attribution between AppsFlyer and third-party platforms.
Overview
Due to media sources' data-sharing policies, not all user-level data is shared with third-party platforms (such as analytics and marketing platforms). For these reasons, there may be discrepancies in attribution between data displayed on third-party platforms and data in AppsFlyer.
Note
Aggregated and analytics data from the AppsFlyer platform is available without limitation.
Postback restrictions on third-party platforms
When it comes to sending postbacks to third-party platforms, there are different levels of media source restrictions. Postbacks can either not be sent at all, be sent without attribution, or be sent without restriction.
Types of postback restrictions
No postbacks are sent
Postbacks for raw data events restricted by media sources, as detailed in this table, aren't sent to third-party platforms. This means third-party platforms don't get postbacks of such events, leading to less attribution on their platform compared to AppsFlyer.
Postbacks are sent with no attribution
For events other than restricted raw data events, the ad networks listed below require advertisers to redact the media source when sharing postbacks to third-party platforms. AppsFlyer does this by substituting the original media source with organic attribution. This means postbacks of such events sent to third-party platforms don't include attribution to the media source, leading to less attribution on their platform compared to AppsFlyer:
- Amazon
- Meta ads
- Snapchat (TOS)
- X Ads
- Bing
- Yahoo (Oath: Ad Platforms / Yahoo Gemini)
Note
For Meta ads, postback behavior depends on whether the advertiser has accepted the Advanced Mobile Measurement (AMM) terms:
- AMM not accepted: Postbacks are sent only for installs attributed by an install referrer. The postbacks do not include attribution data.
- AMM accepted: Postbacks are sent for installs attributed by all attribution methods. However, the postback data does not include attribution data, meaning all postbacks are sent to third-party platforms as unattributed (organic) data.
Regular postbacks
All other events that aren't restricted or the media source isn't redacted are sent as regular postbacks. This includes aggregated events.
| Postback restrictions are applicable to all third-party platforms integrated with AppsFlyer, including the following: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airship | Amplitude | Batch | Braze | CleverTap | Cloud |
| Convertro | deltaDNA | Eulerian | GameAnalytics | IBM UBX | Insider |
| iTunes | Kahuna | Leanplum | Liquid | Localytics | Luna labs |
| Medialyzer | Mixpanel | MoEngage | mParticle | OneSignal | Rocketbox |
| Salesforce | Marketing | MobilePush | Segment | Spoteffects | Swrve |
| Tapcart | Tealium | WebEngage | Winclap Analytics | Google Analytics 4 | |
Examples of discrepancies
Raw data restrictions on Mixpanel
Example 1
An advertiser uses Meta ads to place an ad. They are also working with Mixpanel to better understand how users behave and interact with their app. The advertiser checks to see the number of installs attributed to Meta ads in the last month:
| On AppsFlyer | On Mixpanel |
|---|---|
|
The advertiser sees 100 installs attributed to Meta ads. 30 of the installs were attributed using the gp_referrer parameter. These events are not restricted and appear in raw data reports. |
The advertiser sees only 30 installs attributed to organic. Mixpanel does not get postbacks for the 70 restricted events. The postbacks for the 30 installs attributed using the gp_referrer parameter are sent as organic. |
Example 1
An advertiser uses Meta ads to place an ad and has accepted the AMM terms. They are also working with Mixpanel to better understand how users behave and interact with their app. The advertiser checks to see the number of installs attributed to Meta ads in the last month:
| On AppsFlyer | On Mixpanel |
|---|---|
|
The advertiser sees 100 installs attributed to Meta ads. The install raw data report will include all 100 installs, not just the installs attributed via the gp_referrer method |
The advertiser sees 100 installs attributed to organic. Because AMM is accepted, Mixpanel receives postbacks for all 100 installs. However, none of the postbacks include attribution data, so all installs appear as organic. |
Raw data restrictions on MoEngage
Example 2
An advertiser uses Pinterest to place an ad. They're also working with MoEngage to get insights on customer engagement. The advertiser checks to see how many "Add to wishlist" events were attributed to Pinterest in the last month:
| On AppsFlyer | On MoEngage |
|---|---|
| The advertiser sees 97 "Add to wishlist" events attributed to Pinterest. | The advertiser doesn't see any "Add to wishlist" events attributed to Pinterest. MoEngage didn't get click-through and view-through event postbacks from Pinterest since they're restricted events. |
Restrictions on Airship
Example 3
An advertiser uses Bing to place an ad. They're also working with Airship to optimize the user journey on their mobile app. The advertiser checks to see how many purchase events were attributed to Bing in the last month:
| On AppsFlyer | On Airship |
|---|---|
| The advertiser sees 35 purchase events attributed to Bing. | The advertiser sees 84 purchase events from organic sources. 35 of them came from Bing, but they wouldn't know that since those purchase events appear as organic. |
See also
FAQs on raw data content restrictions.