Track how customers discover, research, consider and purchase products, and quantify the impact of your marketing activities on orders and revenue, so you can make better-informed marketing decisions.
By the time a purchase happens, many of the touchpoints that influenced it have already been missed by your attribution model. If you’re relying on GA4 and platform-reported metrics to make budget decisions, you’re making them based on an incomplete picture of what’s really driving sales.
Here’s where the gaps are, and why they exist ↓
Four gaps in standard retail attribution
Purchases that take weeks to decide
Last-click attribution gives disproportionate value to the final interaction, while overlooking the earlier activity that created awareness and influenced demand. Without impression-based modelling, upper-funnel channels can appear to contribute little or nothing, leading to budget being shifted towards channels that are easier to measure rather than those genuinely driving incremental revenue.
Sales closed by phone or in-store
Your highest-value sales, a considered piece bought after weeks of research, a complex purchase that requires additional guidance, or a large order placed by phone, typically close offline. These sales have no digital record linking them to the marketing that generated them. They get logged as walk-ins or phone sales with no source attached, so the channel that produced the enquiry receives no recognition for the revenue it drove.
Platform reporting that overstates results
Google, Meta and other ad platforms each attribute conversions inside their own attribution window, independent of what the other platforms are claiming for the same sale. Add their reported conversions together and the total is typically two to three times your actual order count. Budget decisions made against those individual platform dashboards are being made against a total that doesn’t match what actually shipped.
Returning and VIP customers
A customer who purchased before and comes back to buy again is usually logged as a new direct sale, with no campaign or channel attached. That repeat purchase is the result of product quality and service, not the absence of marketing influence. Treating it as unattributed means retention marketing gets no recognition, and budget gets planned as though repeat purchase occurs without any driver behind it.
A measurement model built around the ecommerce journey
First-party tracking across every conversion type
Ruler uses a first-party tag to record calls, form fills, live chat conversations and click-to-buy events, and ties each one to the marketing touchpoints that preceded it. As it’s first-party data, tracking accuracy holds up as third-party cookies continue to degrade.
Multi-touch attribution
Compare first-click, last-click, linear, position-based, time-decay and data-driven attribution models against the same customer journeys. Every conversion matches back to CRM and order data, so the output is revenue and order value by channel, not just conversion counts.
Data-driven attribution with impression modelling
Click-path data from MTA combines with MMM-derived impression weightings to reallocate value away from over-attributed direct and brand search traffic, toward the CTV, display and video impressions that built consideration but rarely receive the last click.
Marketing mix modelling
Statistical modelling across every channel, including TV, print and out-of-home, incorporating seasonality, gifting peaks and diminishing returns across up to 30 variables at once, with historical lookback and forward budget forecasting.
Budget scenario planning
Diminishing-return curves show where each channel is saturated and where additional spend still generates revenue. Model optimised, efficiency-focused and custom budget scenarios before committing spend, built for a category where demand shifts with season and the sale calendar.
Integrations and data enrichment
Ruler pulls data from your ad platforms, CRM and order management system, then pushes attribution data back out, so ad platforms bid against real purchase and revenue signals rather than form-fill events alone.
What changes with a unified measurement model
Deduplicated reporting across every channel
Ruler deduplicates conversions reported separately by each platform and matches them to your actual order data, so revenue by channel reflects what was actually sold, rather than the inflated total you get from summing individual platform dashboards.
Offline conversions connected to source
Offline enquiries and purchases are connected back to the campaign, keyword or channel that influenced them, so sales completed in-store or over the phone are included in the same measurement model as online conversions.
Order value and lifetime value by channel
Touchpoints are matched to CRM and order data, so you can see which campaigns produced your highest average order value and repeat purchase rate, not just which produced the most enquiries.
New customer acquisition tracked separately
Segment reporting by new versus returning customer, so budget can be planned for acquisition and retention as distinct goals rather than a single blended conversion metric.
Impression-based channels measured on influence
Display, video, CTV and paid social are scored on the impressions and view-through activity that shaped a purchase decision, using MMM-derived weightings, rather than being reported at zero because they rarely receive the final click.
Purchase data feeding back into platform bidding
When Google, Meta and other ad platforms receive actual purchase and revenue data instead of form-fill events, automated bidding optimises against real sales outcomes rather than proxy conversions.
Trusted by teams who need the full picture
Fixed our problem with revenue attribution. We can now see exactly which campaigns drive closed revenue, not just leads.
With Ruler’s data we’re now able to optimise campaigns based on actual won business, as opposed to web conversions.
A must-have to track leads across multiple tech stacks. The CRM enrichment alone changed how our sales team works.
Ruler Analytics allows us to invest in the right channels and create effective campaigns that deliver results for our clients.
How one consumer brand reconciled MMM and MTA across ecommerce, retail media and TV
A fast-growing consumer brand selling a considered, high-value product across Google, Meta, connected TV, Amazon, Walmart and QVC needed a single measurement model, because each platform was reporting a different version of the same sale, and none of those versions matched actual shipped orders.
Last-click attribution was assigning a disproportionate share of sales to Google, even when the purchase decision had been shaped weeks earlier by a TV ad or a display impression the customer scrolled past without clicking. Combining marketing mix modelling with multi-touch attribution through Ruler gave the team one model that reconciled online and offline revenue against the same order data.
Ready to see how marketing influences purchases?
Ruler connects every channel, online and offline, to the order data behind it, closes the gaps that standard attribution leaves open, and gives you measurement you can plan budget against.