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Clean room attribution

Clean room attribution connects a publisher's campaign exposure to an advertiser's or retailer's conversion outcomes, without either party sharing the underlying data that would normally be needed to prove the link.

Exposure records and conversion records are matched inside a data clean room, and only the resulting attribution result is returned as output.

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How it works

In a Decentriq data clean room, attribution runs through confidential computing, so the exposure and conversion data are processed inside an encrypted environment that not even Decentriq can access. Rather than tracking a customer across the web with a tracking pixel, the publisher and the advertiser or retailer each upload their own data directly, and matching happens on that data instead. 

Each party also sets its own controls over how its data can be used inside the collaboration, so both sides agree upfront on what the attribution process can and can't do with their data, rather than accepting a fixed, one-size-fits-all model. See our guide on how attribution works without sharing customer data.

Frequently asked questions

How does third-party clean room attribution differ from the first-party attribution offered directly by ad platforms?

First-party attribution is built, run, and reported by the same platform serving the ads, so the advertiser has to trust the platform's own methodology and outputs. Third-party attribution runs through a neutral party instead, matching the advertiser's own exposure and conversion data without either side depending on the platform to grade its own performance.

What are the eligibility criteria to run a clean room attribution study?

Both parties need a shared identifier to match on, such as a hashed email, and the advertiser needs its own record of the outcome it wants attributed, whether that's a purchase, sign-up, or other conversion event. Enough volume on both sides is also needed for the match to produce a statistically meaningful result.

What counts as a conversion in clean room attribution?

It depends on what the advertiser or retailer can supply inside the clean room, anything from an online purchase to an in-store visit or offline sale, not just a website conversion.

What happens if the advertiser doesn't have its own conversion data, e.g. for CPG brands?

Without some source of conversion data, whether the advertiser's own, a retail partner's, or a third-party provider's, there's nothing to match against exposure, so no attribution result can be produced. CPG brands in particular often need a retailer or syndicated data partner to supply that side of the match, since the brand itself usually doesn't hold the sale.

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Talk to us about clean room attribution

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