Attribution is where marketing teams go to fight.
Not because anyone loves conflict.
Because everyone wants the same thing.
Clarity.
Sales wants to know what’s working.
Marketing wants credit for influence.
Finance wants proof the spend wasn’t just for vibes.
And leaders? Leaders just want to know if the money they’re spending is creating momentum or just creating motion.
Attribution is supposed to answer that.
It just… rarely does cleanly.
What Attribution Actually Means
Attribution is the process of assigning credit for a conversion to the touchpoints that happened before it.
A conversion could be:
- A purchase
- A demo request
- A contact form submission
- A trial signup
- A qualified lead
- A closed deal
A touchpoint could be:
- A Google search click
- A LinkedIn ad
- A blog post
- An email
- A webinar
- A referral
- A sales conversation
- A Slack message from a friend saying “these guys are legit”
Attribution is basically you trying to answer:
“What caused this person to take action?”
Attribution, however, is not a recording of reality.
It’s a “model” of reality.
Useful.
Imperfect.
Always missing something.
The Problem Attribution Is Trying to Solve
Buyers don’t move in straight lines.
They move like this:
- See an ad
- Ignore it
- Google you later
- Read a blog
- Get distracted
- Come back from a direct visit
- Ask a colleague
- See a retargeting ad
- Finally convert a week later
Attribution tools want that journey to be a single line.
Humans don’t cooperate.
So attribution is the art of making an educated guess with incomplete evidence.
That’s why it causes so much confusion.
The Three Biggest Reasons Attribution Feels “Wrong”
1. People use more than one device
They see you on their phone.
They convert on their laptop.
Or vice versa.
If the system can’t connect those identities cleanly, you lose parts of the journey.
2. Privacy has changed the game
Cookie restrictions.
iOS changes.
Browser tracking limitations.
This isn’t a complaint. It’s reality. Attribution is simply less complete than it used to be.
3. The journey is longer than your reporting window
If your attribution window is 7 days but the buying process is 60, the model is automatically missing context.
Even perfect tracking can’t fix bad assumptions.
The Most Common Attribution Models
These are the ways people assign credit. None are “correct.” They’re different perspectives.
First-Touch Attribution
Definition: All credit goes to the first interaction that introduced the person to you.
Example:
Someone’s first touch was an SEO blog. They convert three weeks later from direct traffic. First-touch says the blog gets 100% credit.
What it’s good for
- Understanding what creates initial discovery
- Measuring awareness drivers
- Evaluating top-of-funnel channels
Where it lies to you
- It ignores everything that actually convinced the person
- It over-rewards awareness and under-rewards follow-up
First-touch answers: “What brought them in?”
Not: “What closed them?”
Last-Touch Attribution
Definition: All credit goes to the last interaction before conversion.
Example:
The last click was a retargeting ad or a branded search. Last-touch gives that touch 100% credit.
What it’s good for
- Understanding what triggers action
- Measuring conversion-driving tactics
- Evaluating bottom-of-funnel performance
Where it lies to you
- It turns retargeting into a hero
- It makes branded search look like the entire business
- It ignores all the work that created readiness
Last-touch answers: “What finished the job?”
Not: “What created the decision?”
Multi-Touch Attribution
Definition: Credit is distributed across multiple touchpoints.
This comes in a few flavors:
Linear
Every touchpoint gets equal credit.
Good for: a simple baseline
Bad for: reality, because not all touches are equal
Time-Decay
Later touches get more credit than earlier ones.
Good for: acknowledging momentum
Bad for: under-valuing the content that created trust early
Position-Based
Typically gives more credit to first-touch and last-touch, with the rest split in the middle.
Good for: recognizing discovery and decision
Bad for: oversimplifying what actually mattered in the middle
Multi-touch answers: “How did the journey add up?”
Not: “Which one thing did it?”
Attribution Windows
An attribution window is the time period during which touchpoints can receive credit for a conversion.
Common windows:
- 7 days
- 14 days
- 30 days
- 90 days
If your buyer journey is longer than your window, your model will under-credit early influences and over-credit late ones.
That’s why:
- Retargeting looks like it “drives everything”
- Brand search looks like it “creates demand”
- Social looks like it “does nothing”
It’s not that those channels don’t matter. It’s that your window is shaping the story.
Assisted Conversions
An assisted conversion is when a channel influenced the conversion but didn’t get the final click.
This matters because many channels are designed to assist:
- Content
- Social
- Events
- PR
- Partnerships
If you only measure last-touch, you’ll kill the channels that create demand and keep only the ones that harvest it.
That’s how you end up with a business that can close but can’t grow.
Incrementality
Attribution tells you what happened.
It doesn’t tell you what would have happened anyway.
Incrementality is the idea of measuring what your marketing caused in addition to what would have occurred naturally.
This is why branded search is tricky.
People who search your brand might already be convinced. The search ad might be helping… or it might be taking credit for something that was already going to happen.
Incrementality is the difference between:
- “This channel got the last click”
and - “This channel created net new conversions”
Most dashboards don’t measure incrementality well. You need tests, holdouts, or controlled experimentation for that.
So What Should Leaders Actually Do With Attribution?
Here’s the sane approach.
Use attribution like a compass.
Not like a courtroom.
- Look for patterns, not proof
- Use it to ask better questions
- Compare models instead of worshipping one
- Pair it with qualitative evidence from sales calls, demos, and customer feedback
Attribution is not the truth.
It’s a story your tools tell with limited visibility.
Your job is to interpret that story with judgment.
The “2026 Edition” Part
In 2026:
- Tracking is more limited
- Journeys are longer
- Touchpoints are messier
- Buyers self-educate more than ever
So the goal isn’t perfect attribution.
The goal is useful attribution.
Useful means:
- It helps you allocate budget smarter
- It helps you identify what’s working directionally
- It helps you avoid killing demand creation channels too early
The Thing to Remember
Attribution isn’t there to assign credit.
It’s there to prevent you from making dumb decisions confidently.