Afterverse found TikTok’s true ROI was 2x higher. Singular’s MTA showed what last-touch missed.

TL;DR

If you’re running paid user acquisition on TikTok and relying on last-click attribution to judge its performance, you’re almost certainly undervaluing it. Maybe significantly.

That’s not a hunch. It’s what Afterverse found out when they added a layer of multi-touch attribution to their TikTok campaigns, and the gap between what last-click was telling them and what was actually happening was stark.

The problem nobody talks about enough

Last-click attribution has one job: find the final touchpoint before a conversion and give it all the credit. It’s simple, it’s clean, and it’s wrong.

In reality, a user’s journey from first impression to install rarely follows a straight line. They might see a TikTok ad, keep scrolling, open Instagram, see a different ad, then finally download the game three days later after their friend mentions it.

Under last-click, TikTok gets zero credit. The last touch, whatever it was, gets everything.

For channels like TikTok, where discovery and awareness happen at the top of the funnel and conversions often close elsewhere, this creates a systematic blind spot.

Your reporting shows TikTok underperforming. You pull your budget. You optimize away from a channel that was actually driving growth, you just couldn’t see it.

This is exactly the problem Singular’s multi-touch attribution (MTA) solution is built to solve.

How Afterverse found their blind spot

Afterverse knows how to run TikTok campaigns. The Brazilian game studio behind PK XD,  an open-world virtual universe with over 1 billion downloads,  keeps an always-on presence on the platform and treats it as a core UA channel. They’re not newcomers figuring out the basics.

But toward the end of 2025, they were facing a familiar challenge: how do you scale spend confidently when you’re not sure your attribution model is giving you an accurate picture?

Their campaign setup was solid. They were running TikTok’s Smart+ solution across Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, optimizing for an in-app event,  specifically, users reaching a target level inside PK XD after installing. This meant their ads weren’t just chasing installs; they were targeting users likely to become genuinely active players. Good signal, good intent.

The issue was measurement. Afterverse understood that a meaningful share of the people seeing their TikTok ads weren’t converting on TikTok directly. They’d see the ad, move on, and install later through another channel. Under last-click, that TikTok impression,  and all the awareness and intent it generated,  would disappear from the data entirely.

Enter Singular MTA

In December 2025, Afterverse ran Smart+ campaigns optimized for in-app events across Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, with Singular’s MTA tracking the full conversion journey.

What last-click showed
TikTok driving direct installs, measured in isolation from other channels.

What Singular’s MTA revealed

• 70% assisted install rate:  for every 10 direct installs attributed to TikTok, 7 more in other channels had TikTok somewhere in the path
• 2x higher ROI for TikTok than last-click attribution indicated
• +68% CTR improvement across the account
• -35% CPA reduction

Afterverse increased TikTok spend by 31% in December. Singular’s MTA showed the channel was more than earning it.

What assisted installs actually means for your budget decisions

A 70% assisted install rate is worth sitting with for a moment.

It means that for every 10 installs Afterverse could directly trace to TikTok, there were 7 more installs happening in other channels where TikTok had played a role,  as the first touch, a mid-funnel exposure, or a re-engagement moment before someone converted elsewhere.

Under last-click, those 7 installs are invisible to TikTok’s contribution. They get credited to Google, Meta, or organic,  wherever the final tap happened. TikTok looks less efficient than it is. The budget case for TikTok weakens and the optimization decisions that follow are built on incomplete data.

Singular’s MTA works by tracking the full sequence of touchpoints across channels and applying fractional credit based on each channel’s actual role in the conversion path. This gives growth and UA teams a view of performance that reflects reality,  not just whatever happened to be last.

For Afterverse, that view revealed a 2x gap between what last-click was reporting and what TikTok was actually contributing. That’s not noise, that’s a fundamentally different read on channel value, and it changes how you allocate budget, how you set bids, and how you defend spend to stakeholders.

The bigger pattern: why TikTok specifically gets undervalued

This isn’t random. TikTok’s nature as a discovery-first platform means it consistently suffers under last-click measurement,  more so than channels like paid search, where users are already in purchase mode.

When someone is scrolling TikTok and sees a game ad, they’re in a lean back, passive state. They might be entertained by the creative, they might even pause, but they rarely convert at that exact moment. The seed gets planted, and it grows somewhere else.

That behavioral reality means last-click will almost always undercount TikTok. And for mobile gaming specifically,  where creative quality on TikTok is high, audiences are deeply engaged, and the install funnel can stretch across days, the gap between what last-click shows and what’s actually happening can be substantial.

This is why Singular’s multi-touch attribution matters: not just as a reporting exercise, but as a strategic input. Knowing that TikTok has a 70% assisted rate changes how you think about creative investment, channel mix, and what “performance” actually looks like for a discovery channel.

What this means if you’re running mobile UA

If you’re a UA or growth team managing spend across multiple channels, here’s the practical implication

You probably have a gap, too. The question is just how big.

Singular’s MTA solution connects the dots across channels,  tracking where users first encountered your brand, what they saw along the way, and where they ultimately converted. For games studios and mobile apps running multi-channel campaigns, this means:

• More accurate channel-level ROI: stop penalizing top-of-funnel channels for being top-of-funnel
• Better budget allocation:  shift spend toward channels that drive the full journey, not just the last click
• Smarter creative decisions:  understand which TikTok creatives are driving assisted installs even when they don’t close directly
• Stronger stakeholder reporting:  show leadership the real impact of your channels, not the last-click fiction

Afterverse used this to validate a 31% TikTok spend increase with data that showed it was warranted. That’s what confident budget decisions look like when your measurement actually reflects how users behave.

Ready to see your real numbers?

If you’re running paid UA and relying on last-click attribution, you’re optimizing against an incomplete picture. Singular’s multi-touch attribution gives you the full view,  across every channel, every touchpoint, every assisted conversion your current reporting is missing.

Book a demo with our team and discover what makes Singular the top rated MMP on G2.

This post references a case study published by TikTok for Business in partnership with Afterverse. Singular served as the MTA measurement partner for the campaign analyzed in the study.

FAQs

What is multi-touch attribution (MTA) and how is it different from last-click?

Last-click attribution gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the final touchpoint before a user installs or takes action. Multi-touch attribution tracks the full sequence of touchpoints across channels and assigns fractional credit to each one based on its actual role in the conversion path – first touch, mid-funnel exposure, or re-engagement. The result is a more accurate picture of what’s actually driving growth.

How does Singular’s MTA solution work?

Singular tracks the full sequence of touchpoints across channels, from first impression through to conversion. It then applies fractional credit to each touchpoint based on its actual role in the user journey. This gives growth and UA teams channel-level ROI that reflects how users actually behave, rather than just what happened to be last.

How do I know if I have a measurement gap?

If you’re running paid UA across multiple channels and relying on last-click attribution, you almost certainly have one – the question is just how large. The Afterverse case revealed a 2x gap. To find your own number, the starting point is adding a multi-touch attribution layer to your existing campaigns.

Why does TikTok specifically get undervalued by last-click attribution?

TikTok is a discovery-first platform. Users are in a passive, lean-back mindset when they encounter ads, which means they rarely convert at that exact moment. The ad plants a seed that grows somewhere else – a later Google search, a Meta retargeting ad, or an organic install days later. Under last-click, TikTok gets none of the credit for that journey. Channels where users are already in purchase mode (like paid search) suffer much less from this problem.

Does this only apply to gaming companies?

No, though mobile gaming is a particularly clear example because the install funnel can stretch across multiple days and channels, and TikTok creative quality in gaming is high. Any mobile app or brand running multi-channel paid UA – where users discover you in one place and convert in another – faces the same measurement gap.