Creator campaigns: a link per creator, so you know who actually earned the install

A creator campaign is a marketing channel with fifty separate suppliers, each paid by results. Run it through one shared link and you get one number — 'Instagram: 4,000 installs' — and no way to tell who earned them. Renewal becomes a guess, and the creators who quietly bought installs to hit a bonus look identical to the ones who did the work.

What problem does this solve?

You need installs and post-install value by creator, not by platform, and you need to know which of those installs were real before the invoices are approved. Both fall out of the same setup: a unique deferred link per creator, tagged with who they are and where they posted it.

How do you set the links up?

One link per creator, per placement if they post in more than one place. The creator handle goes in the payload so the app can personalise the first screen — a 'welcome from @name' is a small thing that measurably lifts first-session completion — and the source tag carries the platform and format so the report can be cut either way.

{
  "deepLinkPath": "/welcome",
  "customData": {"creator": "maya.runs", "placement": "ig-reel", "offer": "creator30"}
}

How do you tell earned installs from bought ones?

The fraud rules do the first pass without you. A creator buying installs shows up as the same device installing repeatedly, or as a burst of installs from one IP inside an hour, or as clicks that convert to installs in under ten seconds — none of which real audiences do. Those installs are flagged in reporting rather than silently counted.

• Click injection — install credited under ten seconds after the click — runs on every plan.
• Device repeat, IP velocity and click flooding are the rules that catch purchased traffic at volume; they need the advanced fraud capability, which is Scale.
• Flags affect reporting only. Whether a flagged install counts toward a creator's bonus is your decision, made in your systems.

What should you pay on?

Not installs. Pay on the post-install event that means the user is real for your business — a completed onboarding, a first order, a seven-day return — and send that event so it attributes back to the creator. Creators paid on installs optimise for installs; creators paid on activation optimise for the right audience, and the difference shows up in your retention curve within a month.

Which metric should you watch?

Activated installs per creator, net of fraud flags, divided by what you paid them. That is the number that ranks the roster. Installs per creator on its own ranks whoever had the loudest week, which is a different list.