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TikTok starts the sale.
Retargeting gets the credit.

For beauty brands on GA4, on any store platform. Causality Engine reads your GA4 export and shows what TikTok, Meta and every other channel caused, next to what last-click gave it, in 1–2 minutes.

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Full refund within 30 days, no questions asked. You keep the read. Prices exclude VAT.

One path, illustrated
  1. Watches a TikTok reviewLast-click credit: 0%
  2. Saves the product on PinterestLast-click credit: 0%
  3. Searches the brand on GoogleLast-click credit: 0%
  4. Clicks a Meta retargeting ad and buysLast-click credit: 100%

Last-click pays the final step and nothing else. The causal read asks what each step caused.

Why beauty attribution breaks. The channel that starts the sale rarely finishes it.

A beauty purchase is usually a few steps long: a video, a review, a search, then the ad that finally gets the click. Last-click attribution, and every platform report that leans on it, hands the whole sale to that final ad.

So TikTok, creators and UGC look weak on the dashboard and retargeting looks brilliant. Cut the first on that evidence and the second soon has less to close.

  • Visual discovery goes unpaid

    TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube start most beauty journeys but rarely take the last click, so last-click marks them down.

  • Creators leave no click

    An influencer post can feed search, Meta and direct sales for weeks. With no click to credit, the dashboard logs it as zero.

  • Retargeting collects the sale

    Retargeting and branded search sit at the end of the path, where last-click pays out. Some of those buyers were coming anyway; the read estimates how much the ads actually caused.

The causal read asks a different question. What would sales have been without it?

Last-click asks who touched the sale last. The causal read estimates, from the GA4 history you already have, what sales would have been without each channel: incremental sales are sales with the channel minus sales without it.

The math, as an illustration:

  1. TikTok costs €10,000 a month. Last-click credits it with €12,000 in sales: 1.2x, the weakest line on the report.
  2. Switch it off and total sales fall by €25,000 a month, because the searches and retargeting clicks it started stop too.
  3. So TikTok caused €25,000 on €10,000 of spend: 2.5x.

Last-click said cut it. The counterfactual says keep it. The read can land the other way too: when a channel's sales would have happened without it, it says so.

Illustrative round numbers, not a customer result. Your own read shows your channels.

What it answers for beauty brands

  • Is TikTok causing sales, or collecting credit for sales that would happen anyway?
  • Do creator and influencer posts lift the search and Meta sales that follow them?
  • Which channels get more last-click credit than they caused, and which get less?

Every channel gets a data-health score from 0 to 100 and a next step. A channel under 1% of credit on both methods is called too small to act on, not guessed at. How the read works.

This is what €99 buys. Your read, channel by channel.

Direct split back to the channels that sent those buyers. Last-click next to the engine. A data-health score and a next step for every channel.

31%

of last-click credit sat on Direct.

Direct is not a channel. The read splits it back.

Illustrative sample

Where Direct’s credit goes: Organic Search +9, Email +8, Paid Search +6, Paid Social +4, Cross-network +4

Last-click, Direct left outEngine, after the splitData health, 0 to 100
  1. Paid SearchAgrees
    Last-click, Direct left out: 34%
    Engine, after the split: 31%

    Data health 96

    Within 25% of last-click. Hold.

  2. Paid SocialEngine lower
    Last-click, Direct left out: 22%
    Engine, after the split: 14%

    Data health 93

    Cut spend a little in one region. Compare revenue after 14 days.

  3. Organic SearchAgrees
    Last-click, Direct left out: 18%
    Engine, after the split: 21%

    Data health 97

    Within 25% of last-click. Hold.

  4. EmailEngine higher
    Last-click, Direct left out: 11%
    Engine, after the split: 19%

    Data health 91

    Put a little more effort here. Judge it after 21 days.

  5. Cross-networkEngine higher
    Last-click, Direct left out: 9%
    Engine, after the split: 12.4%

    Data health 81

    Raise spend a little in one region. Compare revenue after 21 days. Data health under 90: move in steps.

  6. UnassignedFix tagging
    Last-click, Direct left out: 5.4%
    Engine, after the split: 2.1%

    Data health n/a

    No tracked source. Tag every link with a UTM source and medium, then run a new read.

  7. ReferralToo small
    Last-click, Direct left out: 0.6%
    Engine, after the split: 0.5%

    Data health 88

    Under 1% on both methods. Too small to act on.

Round numbers for illustration, not a customer’s read. Your read shows your own channels from your GA4 export, with your common paths to purchase and receipts that check every number against the file.

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Named results. Published with each brand's sign-off.

Three Dutch fashion brands so far. The read works the same way on any GA4 export, whatever you sell.

Read all five case studies

Beauty attribution, question by question.

  • Why does TikTok show a lower ROAS than Meta for my beauty brand?
    Because the two numbers count different things. TikTok often starts a beauty purchase and a Meta retargeting ad often closes it, and last-click gives the whole sale to the close. A causal read asks what sales would have been without TikTok: incremental sales are sales with the channel minus sales without it. Compare channels on that number, next to their last-click credit, not on the platforms' ROAS.
  • How do I know if cutting TikTok will hurt sales or save money?
    Run a causal read before you cut. It estimates what each channel caused from your GA4 history, so you see whether TikTok starts sales that Meta and search close later, or collects credit for sales that would happen anyway. Every channel gets a data-health score from 0 to 100, and a channel under 1% on both methods is called too small to act on, not guessed at.
  • What is the difference between correlation and causality in beauty marketing attribution?
    Correlation is what last-click measures: which channel was present when the sale happened. Causality is what a budget needs: which channel made the sale happen. A retargeting ad can sit next to many sales and cause few of them; a TikTok video can sit next to few and cause many. Causal attribution estimates the second.
  • Can I see which channels drive sales for my Shopify beauty brand with GA4 data?
    Yes. The read runs on a GA4 export, so it works for a Shopify beauty brand and for any other store platform GA4 tracks. Upload a GA4 export (12 months or more reads best) and get a per-channel causal read in 1–2 minutes. No app to install, no pixel, no code.
  • How much does attribution analysis cost for my Shopify brand?
    €99 once for a causal read on a GA4 export, refundable within 30 days, no questions asked. Pro is €299 a month, billed monthly, cancel any time, with automated GA4 ingestion and a lifetime look-back. Prices exclude VAT.
  • Why do influencer collaborations show zero ROI in my dashboard?
    Because an influencer post rarely produces the last click. People see it, then search, open an email or click a retargeting ad days later, and last-click credits that final step. The causal read works from what your GA4 export records, so tag creator links with UTMs: GA4 then records creator traffic as its own source instead of folding it into direct and search, and the read includes it.

Keep reading. The terms and comparisons behind this page.

New to the method? Start with causal attribution or why last-click misleads.

Your platforms guess.
We run the math.

Upload a GA4 export and see what each channel caused, next to last-click, in 1–2 minutes. The read is yours to keep.

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The free finding runs in your browser. Your file never leaves it. The full read is €99, refundable within 30 days, no questions asked. Prices exclude VAT.