Attribution Models

Facebook Attribution

Meta's deprecated multi-touch attribution tool, replaced by Aggregated Event Measurement and Conversions API.

Facebook Attribution was Meta's free multi-touch attribution tool (2018-2021) that tracked customer journeys across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and external channels. It offered multiple attribution models (last-click, first-click, linear, time-decay, data-driven) and showed cross-channel impact. Deprecated: Shut down in 2021 due to iOS privacy changes. Replacement: Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) for iOS users (limited to 8 conversion events), Meta Conversions API (server-side tracking), and Meta Attribution (paid tool for large advertisers). For historical context: Facebook Attribution was valuable for understanding multi-touch journeys but became impossible to maintain post-iOS 14.5. Modern alternative: Use Google Analytics 4, third-party attribution platforms (Rockerbox, Northbeam), or build custom attribution in data warehouse.

Related Terms

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Facebook Attribution and why was it deprecated?

Facebook Attribution was Meta's free, multi-touch attribution tool (available from 2018 to 2021) designed to help advertisers track the customer journey across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and external channels. It offered various models like last-click, linear, and data-driven attribution to assign credit to multiple touchpoints. The tool was deprecated and ultimately shut down in 2021 due to the significant privacy changes introduced by Apple's iOS 14.5 update. These changes severely limited the ability to track users across apps and websites, making it impossible for Meta to maintain the cross-channel, user-level tracking that the Facebook Attribution tool relied upon. Its deprecation marked a major shift toward privacy-centric measurement methods in digital advertising.

How do marketers measure conversions on Meta platforms now that Facebook Attribution is gone?

Marketers now rely on a combination of privacy-centric tools to measure conversions on Meta platforms. The two primary replacements are the **Conversions API (CAPI)** and **Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM)**. CAPI is a server-side tracking solution that creates a direct, more reliable connection between a marketer's data and Meta's ad systems, bypassing browser-based restrictions. AEM is a protocol designed to measure web and app events from users on iOS 14.5 and later devices, limiting advertisers to a maximum of eight prioritized conversion events per domain. For comprehensive, cross-channel measurement, many sophisticated e-commerce brands have also moved to third-party attribution platforms or are building custom attribution models in their own data warehouses.

What is the difference between Meta's Conversions API and Aggregated Event Measurement?

The Conversions API (CAPI) and Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) are complementary tools that address different aspects of modern, privacy-focused measurement. **CAPI** is a server-side solution that sends conversion events directly from a marketer's server to Meta, making tracking more reliable and less susceptible to browser or ad-blocker interference. It is the preferred method for maximizing Event Match Quality. **AEM** is a protocol that specifically addresses the limitations imposed by Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework for iOS users. It aggregates data to protect user privacy and restricts the number of measurable web conversion events to eight per domain. In practice, CAPI ensures the highest quality data transmission, while AEM ensures that *some* conversion data can still be measured and used for optimization, even for users who have opted out of tracking on iOS devices.

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