Attribution that a CFO will actually sign off on
Server-side click IDs, deterministic UTM chaining, and why a 30-day cookie is a fallback — not a foundation.
By Daniel Reyes

Every finance team that's ever audited an influencer campaign has asked the same three questions: which creator, which post, which conversion. Any attribution stack that can't answer those cleanly is going to lose the budget review — no matter how good the ROAS story looks in the deck.
The modern answer is a layered one. Server-side click IDs handle the majority of clean traffic. Deterministic UTM chaining catches attributed sessions when a click ID is missing. A 30-day cookie is the fallback for the edge cases where neither fired. Together, that stack gets you into the high 90s of attributable conversions — and, crucially, gives finance a clear audit trail per creator, per post, per dollar.
This is the wiring most brands wish their creator programs had, and it's why enterprise buyers are moving off spreadsheet-run influencer programs. Not because spreadsheets don't work, but because they can't be defended in a QBR.

