ChirplyA practical example
A person reads an email, returns through a search result and later calls a tracked number. A report crediting the first recorded interaction can tell a different story from a report crediting the last recorded interaction before the call.
How to use this concept
Begin with the business question: which campaigns produce inquiries, qualified opportunities or customers? Those outcomes require different records. A phone call is evidence of contact; the associated deal and billing records establish later stages of the relationship.
Keep source labels consistent through campaign URLs, forms and call tracking. Confirm that the relevant identifiers survive the handoff to a contact or deal, and record the chosen lookback window and handling of direct or unknown traffic.
Treat missing observations as a visible reporting limitation. Cross-device journeys, consent choices and offline conversations can leave gaps. Attribution assigns credit according to the available records and rules; causal impact requires an appropriate comparison or experiment.
Why can two attribution reports disagree?
They may use different outcomes, identity matching, time windows or credit rules. Compare those definitions and the underlying counts before interpreting the difference as a tracking failure. A shared reporting specification makes the comparison useful.