Attribution System

AppActor treats attribution as a product system, not as a bag of custom attributes. Use this page when you need to decide which API should receive a customer field, campaign value, or platform acquisition signal. This is the AppActor “customer context plus integrations” mental model. AppActor keeps surfaces explicit instead of asking you to encode every partner or campaign value as one property map.

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What belongs where

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Reserved versus custom

Custom attributes are for your app’s own segmentation facts. Reserved profile helpers and integration identifiers are for AppActor-owned or partner-owned fields. Do not create custom keys that imitate reserved namespaces. Across SDKs, keys with reserved prefixes such as $, appactor., or integration. are rejected or reserved for dedicated APIs.

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Data flow

1. Configure the SDK with the AppActor public key and the current appUserId when you have one.
2. Send integration identifiers to the dedicated integration-ID APIs.
3. Send campaign metadata through attribution helpers or the typed attribution object.
4. Enable platform helpers only on the platforms where they exist.
5. Let AppActor attach the resulting context to the customer and downstream subscription events.

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Clearing and merging

Attribution updates are intentionally separate from custom attribute deletes.

• Use unsetAttribute(...) only for custom attributes.
• Use integration-ID unset helpers for partner identifiers.
• Use attribution helper methods or typed attribution payloads for campaign fields.
• Prefer explicit clearing semantics when the SDK exposes them instead of sending empty strings.

When anonymous and logged-in users merge, AppActor can preserve customer attributes, profile context, integration identifiers, attribution state, and experiment assignment history in the server-side identity flow. SDK code should still send the current known partner IDs after login so downstream matching stays fresh.

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Campaign fields

Campaign attribution should use the attribution surface: Use full typed attribution when you already have a full payload. Use lighter helper methods when your app learns one field at a time.

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Install Referrer and Apple Ads

Apple Ads and Google Play Install Referrer are platform acquisition helpers:

• Apple Ads is iOS-only and uses the native iOS attribution helper plus dashboard Apple Ads connection.
• Install Referrer is Android-only and should be enabled after Android configure.
• Both enrich attribution and analytics. Neither should grant access.

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Platform pages