Picture this: you’re looking at your revenue reports, and suddenly you’re seeing double. Not because you’ve been staring into the screen for too long, but because different platforms are showing you wildly different numbers for what should be the same thing. And you are certain that you’re sending them the right data. Welcome to the delightful world of attribution dating — where when something happened matters almost as much as what happened.
Let’s say you’re comparing data between your analytics and ad platforms and notice something unsettling. For the month to date:
That’s not a rounding error — that’s a factor of 2.4x difference. Before you start questioning your sanity or your tracking setup, understand that both numbers are correct. They’re just answering different questions.
Transaction date attribution provides absolute certainty to the sources of this month’s revenue. It effectively carbon-dates each dollar to figure out which ancient marketing campaign originally unearthed that customer. This method is helpful for understanding sources of revenue in each specific month and closely mirrors how e-commerce revenue appears in Google Analytics, for example. The total value would always match your actual sales.
When you use transaction attribution, you’re essentially asking: “What revenue did we generate this month, and where did those customers originally come from?” It’s perfect for monthly revenue reporting, understanding seasonal patterns, and keeping your CFO happy with consistent month-over-month comparisons.
You’ll find transaction date attribution in e-commerce platforms, payment systems and web analytics software like: Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe and Google Analytics.
The catch? The larger figure ($8,940 in our example) represents all of this month’s revenue, tagged back to wherever those customers first heard about you — even if that first click happened when flip phones were still a thing.
Acquisition date attribution flips the script entirely. Instead of asking when money came in, it asks: “For all the customers we acquired in a given period, how much revenue have they generated over their entire lifetime?” Think of it as tracking your marketing investments like a particularly patient gardener — you plant seeds (campaigns) in specific months and then measure all the fruit those seeds will ever produce.
This method displays accumulated revenue (lifetime value) for each customer acquisition period. When you see the smaller figure ($3,720), you’re looking at the total lifetime value of customers who were first acquired through Google/CPC campaigns during the current month.
Acquisition date attribution is a realm of ad platforms like Meta and Google Ads.
This approach is invaluable for measuring return on ad spend because it shows you the long-term value of your acquisition efforts, rather than just immediate conversions. Consequently, all ad platforms use it to report ads performance.
When we implemented revenue tracking and attribution reports in Able CDP, we made switching between both approaches refreshingly simple. One click on the acquisition-transaction toggle transforms your transaction-dated report into an acquisition-dated one — perfectly aligned with ad platform reports, because consistency is rather the point.
The beauty of the reports in Able CDP is that the full details are only one click away. Click on any data point — whether on the chart or in the data table — and Able CDP will cheerfully tell you exactly which conversions are included in the total.
Here’s where things get properly complicated. Even when you think you’re comparing like with like, different platforms will show different numbers because:
Tracking coverage varies: Your third-party analytics might show $6,850 while your attribution tool and the e-commerce platform show $8,940. This often happens because different systems are like security cameras with different blind spots — they track different payment methods, miss certain order types, or handle refunds differently.
Click attribution windows differ: Ad platforms like Google Ads might show $4,400 while your attribution tool shows $3,720 for acquisition-date revenue for a given month. This typically occurs because ad platforms split revenue between first and more recent clicks, while many attribution tools use “first-touch” attribution and assign all revenue to the original source.
Neither approach is inherently better — they’re tools for answering different questions. Use transaction date attribution when you need to understand monthly revenue patterns and cash flow. Use acquisition date attribution when you’re trying to measure the effectiveness of your marketing investments and optimize your ad spend.
Just remember: when someone asks “How much did our Google ads make us this month?” the answer depends entirely on which question they’re actually asking. And that is why attribution is both an art and a science — with a healthy dose of “it depends” thrown in for good measure.