Connect creator codes and recorded link interactions to orders without counting the same sale twice. Reconcile refunds and campaign costs, then separate credited revenue from evidence of incremental growth.
Influencer marketing attribution assigns sales credit to a creator using recorded codes or link interactions under a documented rule. Reconcile those signals to unique orders, subtract refunds and resolve affiliate overlap before comparing sales with campaign costs. The result describes credited outcomes; it does not prove how many purchases the creator caused.
A creator code records redemption of that code. A recorded tagged-link interaction identifies a campaign interaction, provided your export retains the connection to the eventual order. A creator's audience size or a report of content views cannot replace that order-level connection.
Google Analytics documents campaign URL parameters such as source, medium and campaign for identifying referring campaigns. A naming convention makes exported campaign labels easier to compare, but a label alone is not a verified sale. Obtain the order ID and the recorded interaction or code from the systems where your business already captures them.
Define the eligibility window, the treatment of code-only orders, the priority between codes and links, and what happens when a customer interacts with several creators. Keep the purchase timestamp and interaction timestamp in the same time zone. A window that changes halfway through reporting changes which purchases receive credit even when the underlying orders stay unchanged.
The wider marketing attribution models comparison covers general allocation rules. For this workflow, the central question is whether the creator report agrees with the sales register after overlap and refunds.
Use an order export containing unique order ID, purchase date, merchandise sales after discounts, refund amount and currency. Add a creator export containing creator ID, code, recorded link interaction, eligibility status and the associated order ID. Keep campaign costs in a separate table with creator ID, cost description, service period and amount.
Summarize refund events by original order before joining them. Several refund rows attached to the same order must not repeat its entire sale. Likewise, a creator's code and link appearing on the same purchase are separate evidence fields, not separate revenue rows.
A campaign manager should review unclear matches. Finance should confirm the sales basis and refund cutoff. The analyst then applies the agreed credit rule and reports unresolved items separately. This division makes the report reviewable without asking an analyst to decide commercial payment terms.
A fictional US homewares seller reviews the following campaign order cohort. Gross sales exclude shipping and sales tax and are already net of discounts. Refunds are positive deductions. Every linked interaction meets the seller's documented window, and the agreed rule gives each eligible order full credit to the listed creator.
| Order | Recorded evidence | Assigned creator | Gross sales (USD) | Refunds (USD) | Net sales (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C101 | Creator A code; also in affiliate export | A | 1,200 | 200 | 1,000 |
| C102 | Creator A link | A | 900 | 0 | 900 |
| C103 | Creator B code | B | 600 | 600 | 0 |
| C104 | Creator B link | B | 800 | 0 | 800 |
| C105 | No qualifying creator evidence | Unassigned | 500 | 0 | 500 |
| Total | 4,000 | 800 | 3,200 |
Each order's net sales equal gross sales minus refunds. Creator A receives 1,000 + 900 = $1,900. Creator B receives 0 + 800 = $800. Unique creator-linked revenue is therefore 1,900 + 800 = $2,700, with $500 unassigned.
The sales identity is $2,700 assigned + $500 unassigned = $3,200 net sales. Independently, 4,000 - 800 = $3,200. Both checks must agree before the report is used to compare creators.
C101 also appears in the affiliate report at its retained net sales value of $1,000. Adding the affiliate total for that order to the creator total would produce 2,700 + 1,000 = $3,700 of claimed campaign sales. That exceeds the unique creator-linked amount by the repeated $1,000.
Keep C101 tagged as both creator-linked and affiliate-linked in the working file. For a combined channel total, count its $1,000 once. For separate channel views, label the reports as overlapping and state that their totals cannot be added. A separate commission ledger may still show a payment obligation against C101.
Use affiliate marketing attribution for the commission approval and reversal workflow. Resolving a sales-credit overlap does not itself cancel a contractual commission.
The seller's cost export contains these amounts for the same campaign scope:
| Creator | Creator fee (USD) | Allocated campaign support (USD) | Total campaign cost (USD) | Credited net sales (USD) | Sales / cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 600 | 100 | 700 | 1,900 | 2.71 |
| B | 450 | 50 | 500 | 800 | 1.60 |
| Total | 1,050 | 150 | 1,200 | 2,700 | 2.25 |
Total campaign cost is creator fee plus allocated support. Divide each creator's credited net sales by that creator's total cost. Round the resulting multiples to two decimals. The combined multiple is 2,700 / 1,200 = 2.25; do not average the displayed creator multiples.
These figures can guide a discussion about fees, refund exposure and missing evidence. They do not yet show profit because the table contains no merchandise or delivery cost. The marketing ROI versus ROAS guide explains the contribution boundary. If the objective is customer acquisition, measure new customers separately using the definitions in customer acquisition cost.
Google's attribution definition concerns assigning credit to interactions. Preserve that distinction when presenting the result: a reconciliation of supplied orders is not a causal test. Covirage is not affiliated with Google.
Bring a sample of your own creator-linked orders, refund records and campaign cost export with the credit rules already defined. Covirage maps the columns, and its tools compute and check the supplied outcomes and costs; the external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account in about a minute, then set up your business and bring your file.
See sales insights for the supporting business context.
Use the priority rule agreed before the campaign. Codes show redemption, while link records show a recorded interaction; neither automatically outranks the other. Preserve both signals and assign the order once in the combined sales-credit report.
Only after checking for common order IDs. A creator may also be an affiliate, so the same order can appear in both exports. Keep the channel labels for analysis, but count the underlying sale once when producing combined revenue.
It measures credited revenue per dollar of campaign cost. ROI requires the relevant contribution after product and other delivery costs, as well as marketing cost. A revenue multiple also does not establish that the campaign caused those sales.