Tutorials / Attribute every channel

Attribute YouTube, Reddit and X revenue

4 minute read

Social traffic under-reports itself: apps open links in webviews, referrers get stripped, and the visit lands as Direct. The fix is the oldest trick in attribution: put your name on the link.

1. What works automatically

When the referrer survives, visits from YouTube, Reddit, X and other social hosts are classified as their platform with no setup, and AI assistants that send you readers get their own panel too.

2. Tag the links you place yourself

Video description:  https://acme.com/?ref=youtube
Reddit comment:     https://acme.com/?ref=reddit
X bio or post:      https://acme.com/?ref=twitter

The ?ref= shorthand counts as the source even when the app kills the referrer. Use twitter for X: visits that keep X's referrer already land in the Twitter row, and ?ref=x would start a separate one. Add utm_campaign when you want per-video or per-thread rows in the Campaigns tab.

3. Read journeys, not just last clicks

Social is a classic journey-starter: someone watches your video, searches your name a week later, buys. "Sales sources" counts that video in Orders and First source even though search was the Last source, which is exactly the credit a last-click report would have stolen.