Attribution in marketing is at a crossroads. While businesses strive to track and measure every touchpoint, the reality is that no single model can fully capture the complexity of the modern buyer’s journey. Many still rely on last-click attribution—a model that gives all the credit to the final touchpoint before conversion—but it’s often not enough.
As marketers, there’s a need to move beyond last-click attribution and focus on measuring true impact, especially when it comes to multi-touch strategies. Carol Noon, Senior Media Supervisor, and Meredith Mikesell, Senior Media and Analytics Manager at Intelligent Demand, take a close look at how going beyond the last-click can lead to smarter attribution and smarter growth.
Last-Click Attribution: An Oversimplified Approach?
Though last-click attribution is widely used by many companies, there are a few issues with it:
- Just because a user’s last interaction was with an ad doesn’t mean that particular ad was the driving force behind their decision.
- Other channels—like social media, email, or content marketing—likely influenced the customer’s journey long before they clicked.
- Last-click attribution tends to ignore the full funnel impact of marketing efforts, reducing marketing’s role to the last possible moment.
Without the data to prove that there’s value in investing throughout the funnel, your budget is at risk. If you’re only optimizing for last-click, you risk cutting investments in critical awareness and engagement strategies that help drive long-term success. And most marketers can’t afford to rely on that.
The Problem with Multi-Touch Attribution
Unlike last-click attribution, multi-touch attribution measures multiple touchpoints in a buyer’s journey instead of just the last one. It sounds great in theory, but in reality, it’s not that simple. Meredith explains this challenge clearly: “While [many marketers] believe in a multi-touch approach… there is [not] a truly accurate way to track multi-touch.”
One major challenge? Various advertising channels—whether social media, display ads, search ads, or even offline channels like print—use different metrics and methodologies to measure engagement. This lack of standardization makes it difficult to get a clear picture of how each touchpoint contributes to the final action. “While there are a variety of platforms and tools that claim to track multi-touch attribution…” says Carol, “The fact of the matter is that each media format or channel has a very different purpose and KPI, making it difficult to truly understand or standardize a multi-touch attribution model.”
The Hidden Influence of Marketing Efforts
One of the biggest challenges with attribution models is that they don’t always reflect the true impact of each marketing effort. A conversion might be credited to a Google search ad click, but that doesn’t mean the search ad was solely responsible for driving the action. That potential customer may have first encountered the brand through a LinkedIn ad, a programmatic display ad, or even a magazine ad before deciding to search.
Paid media plays a critical role in building awareness and engagement, but its impact isn’t always directly measurable through traditional attribution models. Channels like LinkedIn or display ads might spark interest long before a prospect clicks on a search ad or submits a form. (Remember, buyers can be up to 85% of the way through their decision making process before they talk to a salesperson!) Yet, if those channels don’t receive direct attribution, they risk being undervalued or overlooked entirely—despite their essential role in the customer journey.
Meredith explains this challenge: “If you just look at last-click or even some multi-touch attribution models, they often discount the early engagement that actually planted the seed. It’s frustrating because channels like programmatic and paid social play a huge role in generating awareness, but they rarely get the credit they deserve.”
This gap in attribution can lead to businesses underinvesting in awareness-driving efforts, even though they play a key role in long-term growth. Focusing only on what’s easy to measure can drive short-term results but may hurt long-term success.
A More Holistic Approach to Attribution Models
Instead of trying to force every marketing channel into a rigid attribution framework, it’s time to focus on the bigger picture—understanding how different touchpoints work together to drive growth. “[You] shouldn’t use those models to grade each media channel on ‘Is it working?’ or ‘Is it not working?’ Instead, [you] should be looking at whether users or accounts that [you’ve]touched with ads—whether a single ad or multiple—are moving through opportunity stages faster,” Carol states. Try asking yourself: Did the campaign contribute to faster movement through the sales funnel? Did it generate larger deal sizes?
By shifting the mindset from attribution to impact, marketers can make more informed decisions about their paid media investments and build stronger, data-driven strategies for growth. As Carol sums up, “It’s time to move away from ‘A paid media channel did a thing!’ and instead look at all the activities and how they’re impacting movement towards the overarching goal. Which, in business, is always revenue.”
Move away from attribution and leverage your data to truly measure impact, so that your marketing efforts can reach their potential and drive real revenue growth. Let’s talk.