Voucher codes are a channel, not a confession

Unique codes are one of the few clean paths in mixed plans. Treating every 11.11 code as proof that digital did the whole job still flattens outdoor and television that ran the week before.

A unique code printed only on a board is a gift. If that code is used, outdoor has a path you do not have to invent. Most 11.11 codes are not unique. They sit in the marketplace listing, in the email, and in the social caption at once. Last-click then reports a tidy digital win because the code field is digital-shaped.

In beauty and fashion readouts we keep seeing the same pattern: television and a modest radio burst run in the week before the sale; the code is redeemed in a six-hour window; the extract gives the code 90% of the week. A first-touch window on the prior week does not deny the code. It asks whether the shopper already knew the name. Often they did.

Practical rule we write into letters: unique placement codes get last-step credit without apology. Shared sale codes get a split with any heavy flight still on air in the previous seven days, unless you initial a last-click-only table and accept that outdoor will look like decoration.

Do not punish the agency for issuing codes. Punish a method note that pretends a shared code is a unique path. That is a file distinction, not a moral one.