Marketing Attribution

Marketing attribution

Attribution is a modelling choice presented as a measurement. Every model distributes credit differently, and the total across platforms routinely exceeds actual conversions because each claims the same customer.

Method

1. Know what your model assumes. Last click credits the final touchpoint and ignores discovery; first click does the opposite. Neither is true, and both are useful for different questions.
2. Distrust platform-reported conversions. Each platform grades its own work with its own window and view-through rules, and summing them double counts.
3. Use incrementality tests for the real answer. Turning a channel off and measuring the difference is the only method that isolates causation (see ab-test-design, correlation-causation).
4. Ask customers how they found you. Self-reported attribution is noisy and captures dark channels such as word of mouth that no tracking sees.
5. Match the window to the sales cycle. A seven-day window on a three-month cycle attributes almost nothing correctly.
6. Track the whole journey where consent allows. First-party data is more reliable than platform pixels and increasingly the only durable option (see consent-management).
7. Use attribution for direction, not precision. It indicates which channels contribute; treating the numbers as exact drives bad reallocation.

Boundaries

Attribution models correlation and rarely establishes causation. Privacy protections have reduced tracking accuracy substantially, and this continues. Brand effects and word of mouth are largely unattributable and often the largest contributors.