Marketplace listings: crediting the seller for the buyer they brought

A two-sided marketplace has a growth loop hiding in plain sight: sellers, hosts and creators promote their own listings, and every buyer they bring is a buyer you didn't pay for. But if the buyer installs and lands on the home screen instead of the listing, the seller's effort evaporates — and you have no way to see which sellers are bringing demand at all.

What problem does this solve?

Two things at once. The buyer has to land on the listing after install, or the seller's promotion fails at the last step. And the install has to attribute to the seller, so you can see supply-side acquisition as a channel, rank sellers by the demand they bring, and decide whether it's worth rewarding.

How do you set the links up?

Each listing gets a share link with the listing and the seller in the payload. The seller shares it wherever they like; the source tag captures where. The payload is what makes the buyer land on the listing and the seller get credit.

{
  "deepLinkPath": "/listings/l_20815",
  "customData": {"seller": "s_4471", "src": "seller-share", "via": "instagram"}
}

What does the seller get out of it?

• Their promotion works. A buyer who installs lands on their listing, not the home page. That alone changes seller behaviour once they notice.
• Optionally, a seller dashboard showing buyers they brought — attribution surfaced back to the supply side. Sellers who can see it, do more of it.
• Optionally, a reward. But the sharing use case shows why to be careful: a reward invites gaming, and the fraud rules will have work to do.

Where does the attribution flow?

The install webhook carries the seller from the payload, and the first purchase carries it too if you send the seller on the event. Feed both into your own systems and the seller's contribution is a column in your data, not a report you have to build.

Which metric should you watch?

Buyer installs per active seller, and the share of first purchases that were seller-attributed. If the second number is meaningful, you have a supply-side growth channel and should treat it like one — with its own goals, its own tooling, and its own line in the plan.