Today’s guest post is written by Keith Perhac, founder and CEO of the marketing analytics platform SegMetrics.
Marketing attribution is the backbone of data-driven marketing. But it’s also technical and confusing for many marketers and business owners. Numbers are numbers, right? They’re facts. So why would changing your attribution change the results?
Here’s the good news: Taking just five minutes to learn the fundamentals of attribution models will radically deepen your understanding of what is and isn’t working in your marketing.
Let’s dive in…
What Is an Attribution Model?
An attribution model is a framework to determine which touchpoints in your marketing motivated someone to buy.
Imagine you run an e-commerce store. Before buying, a new customer might:
See a social media ad
Receive an email newsletter
Check out your blog
Get a recommendation from another site
Finally make a purchase after seeing a retargeting ad
Which of those touchpoints deserves credit for making that purchase happen? If multiple touchpoints deserve credit, do they deserve equal credit?
Attribution models are HOW you answer these questions.
Why Attribution Modeling Matters
Attribution modeling is how marketers assign value to each touchpoint in a customer journey. How you do this will impact how you measure the success or failure of different marketing efforts – and drive your strategy going forward.
For example, if your model favors the first touch a customer has with your brand, your strategy – and budget – will be weighted toward top-of-funnel activities. But if your model favors the last touch a customer takes before buying, much more of your focus and money will be focused on bottom-of-funnel activities. Which is right?
If you’re making decisions about where to spend your marketing budget – or which campaigns to scale – without a clear attribution model in place, you’re essentially flying blind. Or flying in the wrong direction.
A good attribution model can:
Clarify which channels are driving revenue
Reveal underperforming tactics
Justify increased spend on high-performing strategies
Align your team around measurable outcomes
(By the way, SegMetrics includes Attribution Model Toggling, so you can switch attribution models on the fly for deeper insights. It’s a very convenient way to evaluate your performance from multiple angles.)
Five Attribution Models Every Marketer Should Know
Let’s break down the five most common attribution models, their strengths, and when to use each. (Understanding these will put you ahead of the majority of marketers.)
1. First Touch Attribution: Discover Your Entry Points
First touch attribution gives 100% credit to the very first interaction a customer has with your brand. It’s like having a big store with multiple doors and counting which door lets in the most people.
Pros:
Simple to understand and implement
Helps identify top-of-funnel marketing channels
Useful for measuring brand awareness and lead generation strategies
Cons:
Ignores all subsequent interactions
Doesn’t account for what ultimately drove the conversion
Ideal Use Case: When you want to understand how customers initially discover your brand, such as through a social media ad, organic search, or referral.
BONUS TIP: The value of first touch attribution is very dependent on how far back you can track that first touch. Google ads and Facebook ads have notoriously short attribution windows. That’s one reason a tool like SegMetrics, which gives you lifetime attribution windows, is so valuable. Here’s a video with more about lifetime attribution:
2. Last Touch Attribution: Pinpoint Your Conversion Triggers
Last touch attribution gives 100% credit to the final interaction right before a conversion. So it doesn’t matter how many interactions you’ve had with the person – you’re only looking at that final touchpoint before they bought.
Pros:
Highlights the most immediate conversion drivers
Easy to track and implement
Useful for understanding bottom-of-funnel conversion tactics
Cons:
Completely disregards earlier interactions
Might undervalue nurturing touchpoints
Can lead to myopic marketing strategies
Ideal Use Case: When you want to understand what immediately precedes a purchase, like a retargeting ad or a final email campaign.
3. Linear Attribution: See The Full Picture
Linear attribution distributes credit equally across all touchpoints in a customer’s journey. It doesn’t matter how many touchpoints there are or how long the customer journey is, linear attribution gives every piece equal credit.
Pros:
Acknowledges the role of all marketing interactions
Provides a holistic view of the customer journey
Helps justify investments in middle-of-funnel marketing
Cons:
Doesn’t differentiate between high and low-impact touchpoints
Can mask the true effectiveness of specific channels
Less actionable for precise optimization
Ideal Use Case: For businesses with complex, multi-step marketing funnels where each interaction plays a somewhat similar role.
4. Time Decay Attribution: Prioritize Recency
Time decay attribution gives more credit to interactions closer to the conversion – with earlier touchpoints receiving progressively less credit. This works like a balance between last touch and linear attribution and can be beneficial for evaluating long sales cycles where bottom-of-funnel activities are more important.
Pros:
Recognizes the increasing importance of interactions as a conversion nears
More nuanced than linear attribution
Helpful for understanding conversion acceleration
Cons:
Can undervalue early-stage brand awareness efforts
Requires sophisticated tracking
Complex to implement and interpret
Ideal Use Case: Companies with longer sales cycles, like B2B SaaS or high-ticket services, where late-stage interactions often carry more weight
5. Position-Based Attribution: Highlight Key Milestones
Position-based attribution (or “W-shaped” attribution) concentrates on specific, pivotal moments in the customer journey. Typically, this means giving more weight to the first touch, lead conversion, and final conversion points. It’s a multi-pronged approach.
Pros:
Recognizes key conversion milestones
Provides insights into key stages of the customer journey
Balances recognition of initial acquisition and final conversion
Cons:
Can be complex to implement
Might still undervalue some middle-stage interactions
Requires detailed tracking of specific conversion events
Ideal Use Case: For businesses with clear, multi-stage conversion processes, like SaaS companies with defined onboarding and conversion paths.
How to Choose The Right Attribution Model
Now that you’re familiar with the core attribution models, it’s much easier to see when you might want to use each one:
Most businesses will only use first touch, last touch or linear attribution. These are the simplest to implement and to understand.
Regardless, just knowing what attribution model you’re viewing your data through can sharpen your data-driven decision-making.
Real-World Scenarios: How Different Industries Can Use Attribution Modeling
Attribution models aren’t some nerdy data science theory – they’re deeply practical. Each is a tool designed for a specific job.
Let’s explore how different industries tackle attribution challenges:
E-Commerce: Navigating Multiple Touchpoints
As an online retailer, you might track:
Social media promos driving initial awareness
Retargeting ads giving interested customers an incentive
Abandoned cart emails providing an extra conversion push
In this scenario, a linear or position-based model could work best, capturing both the initial attraction and final conversion moments. Or, you could run more than one analysis. Use a last touch or time-decay model to identify the most important touchpoints for driving conversions. Then use a first-touch model to identify where your leads are coming from in the first place.
B2B SaaS: The Complex Conversion Journey
For a software company, your customer journey could include:
Initial content marketing or LinkedIn ad
Gated content download
Product demo request
Sales call
Free trial activation
Final contract signing
Here, position-based attribution shines, highlighting critical milestones like the demo request and sales call that significantly influence the conversion process.
Creators: Long Nurture Funnels
Course creators and coaches often see customers paths like:
Podcast appearance
Free webinar
Email nurture sequence
Sales page
Final launch email
Linear models can help understand which touchpoints contribute to the sales without overcomplicating your analytics.
The Myth of the Perfect Attribution Model
Spoiler: it doesn’t exist. Attribution models aren’t about perfect accuracy – they’re about usefulness. They are MAPS for your business. The focus isn’t just about tracking clicks. It’s about understanding the customer’s journey and the story behind each conversion. Each tells you something different about your business.
The most common trap? Wanting a model that reflects every single influence on a customer journey. This often leads to analysis paralysis.
The best attribution model is the one that helps you answer your most pressing questions. Start with your specific business needs, then choose the model that gives you the clearest path to decision-making.
Let Your Questions Drive Your Attribution
In the past, understanding marketing attribution required a dedicated (and expensive) data team. Today, with SegMetrics, anyone can use marketing attribution to better understand what is and isn’t working in their business.
SegMetrics eliminates the complexity, gives you a single source of truth for your analytics, and enables easy toggling between attribution models.
Sign up for a free, 14-day trial from SegMetrics and explore all this for yourself, using your own data. We provide support to get you up and running quickly and answer any questions you have.
Uncover the true story behind your conversions. Your marketing ROI will thank you.