Attribution

Deciding which marketing gets the credit for a sale. Genuinely hard, and everybody's tool claims the win.

What it means

Attribution assigns credit for a conversion across the touchpoints that preceded it. Models include last-click, first-click, linear, time-decay and data-driven.

Every model is a choice about how to divide something that cannot actually be divided.

Why it matters

Budget decisions rest on it. Last-click attribution systematically over-credits the final channel — usually branded search — and under-credits everything that created the demand in the first place.

If each platform reports its own conversions, the totals will exceed your actual sales, sometimes considerably.

What it looks like in practice

Ask new customers how they heard about you, in a free-text box, and compare that with your analytics. The gap is informative and often large.

For a real answer, turn a channel off for a few weeks and watch total sales rather than that channel's reported figures. Incrementality is the only test that resolves the argument.

Privacy changes, tracking prevention and cookie consent have all made click-based attribution less reliable than it was. Treat it as directional.

What to watch out for

Comparing platform-reported conversions between platforms. They use different windows and different rules and are not comparable.

Cutting brand or awareness spend because it shows poor last-click performance, then wondering why search volume for your name falls.

Where to get proper advice

Your own total revenue is the arbiter. Any analysis that never checks against it is describing a model rather than a business.