MYTH: Your tracking captures the buyer's full journey

MYTH: Your tracking captures the buyer's full journey

Everyone assumes one click equals one credited path. Modern buying is cross-device and cookieless, and your attribution sees maybe half of it.

Reality: someone reads your review on mobile during lunch, then buys on their work laptop a week later. Different device, no cookie carryover, no credit. Apple's ITP and similar protections cap or wipe third-party cookies in days. Privacy-focused browsers block the tracker outright.

So a meaningful slice of conversions you genuinely caused are attributed to "direct" or "organic." The vendor banks them. You get nothing, and worse, your conversion rate looks weak, which weakens your negotiating position.

Server-side tracking and unique coupon codes recover some of it. Default pixel tracking recovers less every quarter.

Verdict: you're being paid on the fraction the browser still lets through.