Customers rarely convert after a single ad. They might see a YouTube video, click a Facebook ad a week later, and finally convert after a branded Google search. Attribution decides how credit is split among those touchpoints — all to the last click, all to the first, or distributed by a data-driven model that estimates each touchpoint's real influence.
Every ad platform attributes conversions using its own rules and windows, so Google and Meta will often both claim the same sale. That's why sophisticated advertisers compare platform reporting against a neutral source of truth — a CRM, GA4, or incrementality tests — instead of adding up what each platform reports.
Example
Meta reports 40 conversions and Google reports 35 for a month in which the CRM shows 55 new customers in total — overlapping attribution means the platforms are partly counting the same people.
How Sloss Digital uses it
We reconcile platform-reported results against the CRM and use data-driven attribution and lift testing to decide where the next dollar goes — not whichever dashboard claims the most credit.