Attribution Model

Category: Analytics

The rule set that assigns credit to marketing touchpoints across a customer's journey.

Attribution models range from single-touch (first-click, last-click) to multi-touch (linear, U-shaped, W-shaped, time-decay) to data-driven (algorithmic, Markov, Shapley). No model is perfect — each answers a different question. Pick one that reflects how your customers actually decide, then stay consistent so trend lines are readable. For SMBs, position-based attribution is the pragmatic default.

See also: mmm, incrementality, utm