Marketing Attribution.

Marketing attribution is the practice of assigning credit for conversions — leads, sales, revenue — to the marketing touchpoints a customer encountered before converting. Attribution models determine how credit is distributed: to the first touchpoint, the last, all equally, or weighted by position or algorithmic contribution.

Attribution Models

Common models include: last-touch (100% credit to the final touchpoint before conversion — simple but overstates bottom-funnel tactics), first-touch (100% to the first touchpoint — useful for measuring acquisition channels), linear (equal credit to all touchpoints — smooth but imprecise), time-decay (more credit to recent touchpoints), position-based or U-shaped (40/20/40 to first, middle, last), and data-driven (algorithmic, requires sufficient conversion volume).

The Attribution Problem

No single attribution model captures the true causal contribution of each touchpoint. Customers interact across devices, channels, and time periods that are partially or entirely invisible to analytics. Dark social, offline touchpoints, and cross-device journeys all introduce untrackable paths. Attribution is a best approximation, not a truth.

Marketing Mix Modelling

Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) uses statistical regression on aggregated historical data to estimate channel contribution without needing individual-user tracking. MMM is regaining favour in the privacy era as cookie-based multi-touch attribution becomes less viable. It is better suited to brand-level strategic investment decisions than campaign-level optimisation.