“I have no idea which creator actually drove sales.”
Then you cannot pay a commission, and you cannot tell which creator to book again. To attribute a sale to a creator you need a signal that travels from their video to your checkout: a tracked link, a discount code, a pixel on your store that records the click, or the ad platform’s own report. Each catches some orders and misses others. The setup that holds up is a first-party count on your own store, links and codes under a last-touch rule with a short window, with the ad platform’s count kept for scaling decisions, and one of the two, never both, chosen to pay the creator.
Why brands lose track of which creator sold
Three reasons, usually all at once:
- The signal was never set up. A creator posted a video with the brand tagged. Viewers searched the brand and bought. No link, no code, no click recorded: the order shows as organic search.
- The signals disagree. Meta says the ad drove 300 orders; Shopify shows 120 with creator codes. Both are counting something real with different rules, and nobody wrote down which one pays. A brand asked in public in October 2026 why its ad platform credited the last click while its creator platform credited the creator (@jforjacob on X); the question only exists because no count was chosen before the videos went live.
- The numbers are spread across tools. Ads in Ads Manager, codes in Shopify, creators in a spreadsheet. By the time someone joins them, the month is over and the creator has asked twice.
Nobody scales an ad without reading which one worked; creators get run that way all the time. An agency’s advice to the brands it runs: “Sort your roster by ad spend, not by GMV or submissions.” (Phil Kiel on X, 30 September 2026). That is only possible when spend and sales are matched to creators in one place.
The four signals, and what each misses
| Method | How it works | Catches | Misses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tracked link | A URL unique to the creator; the click is recorded | Clicks from bio, stories, captions | Viewers who search instead of clicking; cleared cookies; phone-to-laptop |
| Discount code | A code unique to the creator, applied at checkout | Buyers on any device, days later | Buyers who forget the code; codes that leak to coupon sites |
| Pixel (first-party) | A script on your store records the click and the later order | The time between click and order; auditable per order | Anything that did not start with a tracked click |
| Platform-reported | The ad platform credits purchases to the ad from its own data | Ad clicks and, if enabled, ad views | The creator’s own posts and links; anything outside the ad account |
Links and codes together catch most intent-driven buyers. The pixel makes the link count auditable and lets you apply a window precisely. Platform reporting covers the paid side only.
Meta sees the last click; your store sees the code
When a creator’s video runs as a Meta ad, Meta credits purchases to the ad with its own tracking. Meta’s standard attribution settings count a purchase within 1 or 7 days of a click on the ad, within 1 day of a view, or within 1 day of an engaged view, depending on the ad set’s setting (Meta Business Help Center).
| Platform-reported (Meta) | First-party (your store) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who counts | Meta | You |
| Credits views, not only clicks | Yes, if the setting is on | No |
| Covers the creator’s organic posts and links | No | Yes |
| Auditable order by order | Not by you | Yes |
| Changes when the platform changes its rules | Yes | No |
| Best use | Deciding which ads to scale | Paying commissions |
The two will not match and neither is wrong. Decide which pays the creator and write it down. Trybe’s homepage describes the same fork: its own “server-side last-click attribution” or paying creators on Meta’s attribution (Trybe FAQ, checked 7 November 2026).
Last touch and the window
- Last touch: the order goes to the last creator signal before purchase. Click A on Monday, click B on Thursday, buy: B gets it. Simple, auditable, rewards the signal closest to the sale.
- Code overrides click: a code typed at checkout names the creator at the moment of purchase, so it wins over an earlier click.
- Window: how long a signal stays valid. Published defaults vary: Modash’s link tracking “uses last-touch attribution” with a default window of 30 days and needs a connected Shopify store for sales (Modash Help Center); Amazon Attribution “utilizes a 14-day, last-touch attribution model” (Amazon Ads). Longer windows credit more orders to creators, and more of them are doubtful. Seven days is a defensible middle for commission deals. A creator link, a creator code, a seven-day last-touch window: that is the whole rule, and it fits on one line of the brief.
Example: 100 orders under three rules
Example. Three creators, one month, 100 orders that carry at least one creator signal.
| Order group | Count | Last click, 7 days | Code overrides click | Meta’s count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clicked A’s link, bought in 2 days | 40 | A: 40 | A: 40 | Not an ad: 0 |
| Clicked A, then B, used B’s code | 15 | B: 15 | B: 15 | 0 |
| Clicked A, then B, no code | 10 | B: 10 | B: 10 | 0 |
| Used C’s code, no click recorded | 20 | Unattributed: 20 | C: 20 | 0 |
| Saw C’s video as an ad, bought same day, no click | 15 | 0 | 0 | C: 15 |
| Credited | 65 | 85 | 15 |
Under “last click only”, 20 code orders go nowhere and C earns nothing. Under “code overrides click”, C earns on 20, and the 15 view-through orders exist only in Meta’s count. Pay on your store’s count with codes and creators earn on 85 orders. Pay Meta’s count for the ads and your count for organic, and you must make sure no order sits in both. The rule you pick decides who gets paid; pick it before the videos go live.
Refunds and holds
Pay after the return window. Shopify Collabs holds commissions for a default 30 days, adjustable from 1 to 90, and cancels the commission if the order is fully refunded in that time (Shopify Help Center). Copy the idea: hold, reverse on refund, reduce in proportion on partial refund, and give the creator the order list with dates so disputes are rare.
How HourlyUGC does it
On HourlyUGC a campaign with a share of sales has one setting that answers this page: whose count pays.
- Meta’s count. The network’s own attribution for ads built from the creator’s video, as Meta reports it per ad.
- HourlyUGC‘s count. A first-party count through a connected Shopify store or the Hourly Pixel on your site, using creator links and codes, last touch within 7 days. An order is counted once.
- Side by side. When both counts exist, the campaign shows them next to each other per video and per creator, so you can see the gap. Only the count you chose is paid.
- Spend needs no attribution. If the campaign also pays a share of ad spend, that share is read per ad from your Meta account and matched to the video, with no link or code involved.
- No cart to share. Apps and lead-gen brands can pay a fixed $1 to $500 per order, or a share of ad spend, which needs no attribution at all.
The creator sees the counting choice in the brief before they accept, and the Ads tab shows upcoming charges by video and by creator before they are taken. “Which creator drove sales” becomes a column, not a reconciliation.
What to tell creators
- Which signals count (link, code, both) and which wins when both are present.
- The window, in days, from which event.
- Whose count is final, and whether they can see it.
- When commissions are paid and what happens on refunds.
- That they must disclose the relationship when they post. The FTC’s sample wording is “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post,” near the link and in the video itself (FTC FAQ).
Proof
The same single place that holds the count holds the files and the payments. ALLSALE’s Head of Growth, on HourlyUGC: “The rights are ours the moment payment clears. Everything sits in one place, so the team stopped chasing invoices and files.”
Next step
Start a campaign on HourlyUGC, connect Shopify or install the Hourly Pixel, and choose whose count pays before the first video goes live. Pricing is on https://hourlyugc.com/pricing.