How does Google review attribution work?
When you run a review-request campaign, Oddle emails your customers and invites them to leave a Google review. Attribution is how Oddle estimates which of your new Google reviews those emails actually helped generate.
You'll see attributed reviews tagged "Earned with Oddle" in Engage > Reviews, and counted in the stats on each Google Review Request automation.
What attribution does
After someone leaves a review on your Google Business Profile, Oddle looks back over the previous week or so and checks whether you sent review-request emails to that store's customers in that window. If it finds a customer whose name matches the reviewer, it credits the review to your campaign.
That's it in one line: a new review, shortly after we emailed that store's customers, with a matching name, gets credited to the campaign.
How a review gets matched to a customer
Google only shows the reviewer's public display name, not their email. So Oddle matches on the name. It's built to handle how real names actually show up:
Different word order — "Tan Wei Ming" and "Wei Ming Tan" are treated as the same person.
Minor spelling differences and typos — small variations still match.
Accents and special characters — handled automatically.
Chinese names — matched against their romanised (Pinyin) spelling.
If there's no clear full-name match, Oddle looks for weaker hints, like the reviewer's name appearing in the email address. The goal is to catch genuine matches without crediting reviews that aren't yours.
Why it's an estimate, not an exact count
Google doesn't tell anyone who clicked an email or who wrote which review. So attribution is a careful best-guess, not a tracked receipt.
That cuts one way: it leans conservative.
If a customer reviews using a nickname, initials, a different name than the one you have on file, or anonymously, there's nothing to match on — so that win won't be counted.
Attribution only looks back about a week, so a review left much later may not be credited.
The practical takeaway: your real impact is usually a little higher than the number shown.
Think of attributed reviews as a dependable measure of whether your campaigns are working and which stores are responding, not an exact to-the-review ledger. If the count is climbing and your star rating is healthy, your review requests are doing their job.
How to read the number
Trend over total. A rising attributed count means your requests are landing. The absolute number is a floor, not a ceiling.
By store. The campaign view breaks attribution down by store, so you can see which locations are responding and which need a nudge.
Alongside your rating. Attributed reviews plus a healthy average star rating is the signal you want — more reviews, and good ones.
Frequently asked questions
A customer told me they left a review, but it's not attributed. Why?
The most common reason is a name mismatch — they reviewed under a nickname, initials, or a different name than the one in your customer list, or they reviewed anonymously. Attribution can only match on the public name Google shows. It's also possible the review came in outside the look-back window. The review still appears in your Reviews tab; it isn't credited to the campaign.
How far back does attribution look?
About a week from when the review is submitted. The exact window can be tuned per campaign, so treat "around a week" as the rule of thumb.
Does attribution track who opened or clicked my email?
No. Google doesn't expose the reviewer's email, so there's no way to tie a review to a click or open. Attribution matches the reviewer's name to customers you emailed in the recent window instead.
Can a review be credited to the wrong campaign?
Oddle credits the matching review-request email sent closest to the review date for that store, which keeps mismatches rare. Because the matching is deliberately careful, the bigger risk is under-counting genuine wins, not over-counting.
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