Mobile attribution
Mobile attribution is the process of matching an app install — and the in-app events that follow it — back to the click, campaign and channel that produced it.
When someone taps an ad or a link and installs your app, the App Store and Google Play pass almost nothing from that tap to the app's first launch. Attribution reconstructs the connection from signals observed at both ends, so you can say which campaign, channel or creator earned each install.
It works as a waterfall of signals, strongest first. On Android, the Google Play Install Referrer carries a token through the store, so the match is exact. iOS has no equivalent; tools use a deferred click token where one is available and, optionally, probabilistic matching. Installs with no qualifying match are reported as organic. For paid iOS campaigns, Apple's SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit report results in aggregate alongside all of this.
Since Apple's App Tracking Transparency, attribution no longer relies on the advertising identifier. A good attribution report records how each install was matched — its match type — so certain and inferred matches aren't blended into one number.
Attribution tells you which campaign gets credit for an install. It doesn't tell you whether the install would have happened anyway — that's incrementality, measured with a holdout. Measuring install lift covers the difference.