First Click vs Last Click Attribution
When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts, attribution models play a crucial role in determining which channels deserve credit for a conversion. Among the most debated models are First Click and Last Click Attribution. Each offers a different perspective on the customer journey—one prioritizing the initial touchpoint that sparked interest, the other focusing on the final interaction that closed the deal.
Understanding the differences between these models is essential for businesses aiming to optimize their strategies, allocate budgets effectively, and gain clearer insights into consumer behavior. In this article, we’ll break down the pros and cons of each model and help you decide which is best for your business goals.
What is Attribution Modeling?
Attribution modeling allows businesses to assign credit to multiple touchpoints in a customer’s journey. This is an important process for us to understand how effective and impactful our marketing strategies are. Understanding the full customer journey from first touch to last touch allows us to gain insights into customer behavior.
This new analysis provides us with very actionable insights on how different interactions are driving towards our goals. This methodology helps businesses get a better read on what’s effective. It allows us to direct our finite resources to the most impactful projects.
To illustrate this more explicitly, let’s dive into the fundamental principles behind attribution modeling.
Defining Marketing Attribution
Marketing attribution refers to the practice of identifying and assigning value to the interactions that influence a customer’s decision to convert. These interactions, or "touchpoints," could include anything from clicking on a social media ad to visiting our website or signing up for a promotional email.
Attribution provides a structured way to evaluate these steps, offering a holistic view of how marketing channels work together. For instance, if a customer first clicks on an Instagram ad but later converts after receiving an email, marketing attribution helps us understand the role of each touchpoint.
This clarity ensures we can fine-tune our strategies based on real data rather than assumptions.
Why Attribution Matters
It’s important because it closes the loop between what you’re doing for marketing now and what you’re achieving that’s measurable. It allows us to see what campaigns are bringing people awareness, consideration, and most importantly, conversions.
Attribution modeling allows us to see which marketing channels are doing the best work on our behalf. We are able to tell whether our paid search ads generated the first interest or if display ads are crucial in finalizing sales.
With this insight, we can better optimize the budget, putting more money into the channels that drive the greatest impact. In practice, this translates to running campaigns optimized to reach customers where they need us most at every stage of their journey.
Single-Touch vs. Multi-Touch Attribution
Single-touch attribution models, such as first-click and last-click attribution, make the analysis much easier by awarding 100% of the credit to one interaction only. First-click attribution, for example, gives full credit to the first touchpoint, which can be helpful when looking for entry points and where brand awareness comes into play.
Last-click attribution looks only at the last interaction, best at determining what directly makes people convert. These models generally don’t take into account the complexities of a multi-touch journey.
Multi-touch attribution models, like position-based or time decay, assign credit to multiple touchpoints along a path. Position-based attribution credits the first interaction and last interaction equally.
Time decay puts greater emphasis on touchpoints that happen nearer to the conversion. These models give a fuller picture, allowing you to better analyze stages such as awareness, consideration, and conversion together.
First-Click vs Last-Click Attribution: Overview
First-click attribution and last-click attribution are two popular, contrasting attribution models. Each attribution model teaches businesses new things about how their customers operate, which allows them to become more tactical with their strategy. Here, we explain how these models work, how they differ, and the impact each has on marketing initiatives.
1. What is First-Click Attribution?
First-click attribution is all about that first interaction that gets a customer to your brand. With this model, every conversion receives credit based on the very first touchpoint. This is specifically the first ad clicked on or first website visited.
This makes it especially suited to campaigns focused on cultivation and brand awareness—reaching and capturing the attention of new audiences. When a consumer clicks on a social media ad promoting your product, that click is what activates the interest. If they later make a purchase, first-click attribution gives full credit for that conversion to that first ad.
This method is great if you just want to know how customers find your brand. Yet according to Google, only 4% of internet users actually click on ads. By identifying which ads and keywords lead to those clicks, companies can focus on the first touch that generated interest.
It’s a tremendous opportunity and an essential tool for improving awareness campaigns. Spread those marcom dollars more efficiently on effective outreach.
2. How Last-Click Attribution Works
Last-click attribution gives all the credit to the very last touchpoint right before the conversion. This might be clicking on a “Buy Now” button or interacting with a retargeting email.
Consider that a customer first learns about your brand via a search engine ad. Or, they finish their purchase after clicking on a retargeting email, and last-click attribution rewards that email with 100% of the credit for the conversion.
This model is particularly useful for campaigns focused on driving conversions and understanding which strategies push customers to make a purchase. By only focusing on that last touchpoint, it fails to take into account all of the touchpoints leading up to that decision.
3. Key Differences Explained
The key difference between these models is which touchpoint they prioritize. Moving the Needle First-click attribution acknowledges the importance of nurturing the introduction step in the customer journey.
Last-click attribution, on the other hand, focuses myopically on the final stage. This distinction is important in our current multi-channel marketing environment. Touchpoint by touchpoint, these combine to an average of 56 interactions that a consumer goes through before they purchase a brand’s product.
A customer may first learn about a product through an ad on YouTube. Then they read other people’s reviews on a beauty blog and only purchase after getting a triggering discount email.
First-click attribution would give credit to the YouTube ad, and last-click attribution would give credit to the email. Neither model tells the whole story, but both offer different perspectives based on the focus of the campaign.
4. Impact on Marketing Strategies
The attribution model you choose can have a huge impact on your marketing strategy. First-click attribution is an effective start, allowing businesses to prioritize their resources towards important entry-point channels such as display ads or SEO, focusing on brand awareness.
In contrast, last-click attribution allows marketers to pinpoint the most effective channels in converting or closing sales—like retargeting campaigns or email marketing. By knowing the strengths, weaknesses, and nuances of these models, marketers can create more effective strategies based on their goals.
For example, if improving customer acquisition is the goal, first-click attribution can help determine how much to invest in attracting new customers. If your goal is to improve conversion rates, last-click attribution can still provide you useful information.
Combined together, these insights enable you to optimize the last steps of the funnel with precision to be effective.
Advantages & Disadvantages: First-Click Attribution
First-click attribution assigns 100% of the credit for a conversion to the initial interaction a customer has with your brand. This model is your window into which channels customers use to discover your business. It’s a great resource for measuring higher-funnel brand awareness. For as useful as it can be in certain situations, it’s important to address the drawbacks of first-click attribution that businesses should keep in mind.
Benefits of First Interaction Focus
One of the biggest advantages of first-click attribution is its power to shine a light on the channels that generate this valuable initial engagement. Now, let’s talk about the first interaction. This allows us to identify the platforms or campaigns that are most effective at bringing new customers into our brand.
For instance, picture a user who discovers our company after seeing an ad on social media. If they go on to make their purchase, say, after receiving an email, first-click attribution guarantees that ad gets the attribution. Knowing how people are searching gives us crucial insight to refine our outreach strategies to raise visibility and awareness.
This model is most useful for campaigns that are focused on educational content. Inbound marketing channels such as blogs, eBooks, and webcasts are crucial to pulling in prospects. First-click attribution lets us better measure their performance.
When an audience member downloads an eBook, that subsequent purchase of a product is credited to that initial engagement. This example shows the power of educational resources to influence and ultimately drive conversions.
Drawbacks of First-Click Attribution
First-click attribution does have significant disadvantages. It fails to attribute any value to the valuable contributions of intermediate and closing touchpoints in the customer journey. For instance, while a social media ad might introduce a customer to our brand, subsequent interactions like email campaigns or retargeting ads play vital roles in pushing them toward conversion.
Not acknowledging these contributions will give you a skewed picture of our marketing performance. First-click attribution risks glossing over individual and often complex customer journeys. Today’s marketing strategies depend on an interconnected mix of channels, and assigning 100% credit to the first touchpoint’s efforts will inevitably undervalue the contributions of everything else.
More advanced models like time decay or position-based attribution distribute credit among all interactions, offering a more holistic view. These models are harder to set up, however they pay off because they accurately consider the full path to conversion. They counteract the positive effects of first-click attribution.
When to Use First-Click
First-click attribution works well in situations where increasing brand awareness is the main objective. It’s an ideal model for campaigns created to drive new customers or experiment with the success of top-funnel strategies.
This approach works particularly well in sectors in which first impressions count the most. Tech startups and other niche markets particularly succeed on the basis of a huge first impression.
When it comes to predicting long-term strategies or multi-step customer journeys, using first-click in conjunction with other models can offer a more complete picture.
Advantages & Disadvantages: Last-Click Attribution
Originally designed to be a simple starting point for conversion analysis, the Last-Click Attribution Model quickly became the industry standard, especially in digital marketing. This model gives 100% of the credit for a conversion, such as a purchase or sign-up, to the last touchpoint prior to that action. Consequently, it can provide an unambiguous and laser-sharp understanding of performance. This simplicity is very attractive.
It’s important to understand the advantages and drawbacks of this method to understand when it is most effective.
Simplicity and Ease of Implementation
One of the biggest advantages of the Last-Click Attribution Model is its simplicity. It captures activity very simply and should be used simply. This ease of access makes it a great choice for smaller businesses that may not have robust analytics capabilities.
Consider it this way—a small e-commerce store would have no problem tracking the last click. Whether it’s a click on a Facebook ad or a direct visit to their website, they are able to trace it back to an eventual purchase. This elegance means that teams can transform important insights into action without the need for deep technical experience or expensive technology.
Additionally, it has the fact that it’s defaulted by most analytics platforms, requiring little to no setup. These features combined make it a great entry point for businesses just getting into attribution modeling.
Limitations of Last-Click Attribution
Although it is the easiest attribution model to use, the Last-Click Attribution Model usually oversimplifies the complexity of the customer journey. Full credit to the last touch means you ignore all interactions leading up to it.
In another example, awareness-generating ads and educational blog posts are often fundamental components of any customer journey. A potential customer might discover a brand for the first time through an organic search on Google. Next, they click on several other email campaigns, but eventually, they click on a retargeting ad and convert.
In this example, the model significantly underestimates the contributions of the earlier funnel stages that cultivated that final decision. It is less effective for businesses with longer sales cycles or multiple touchpoints, where understanding the entire journey is critical to optimizing strategies.
When to Use Last-Click
The last-click attribution model is ideal for businesses that have short sales cycles endemic to quick conversions. In fact, it really starts to shine when the conversion occurs immediately following that last interaction.
To illustrate, an ecommerce-focused food delivery service or online subscription platform would likely find this model exceedingly valuable. Using it in conjunction with other models, like multi-touch attribution, will give you a more holistic picture.
Distributing attribution percentages among touchpoints helps extract the most value. For example, you can set 40% of the credit to both the first and last interactions and 20% to the middle steps.
How Do These Models Affect Customer Journeys?
Attribution models such as first-click and last-click convincingly influence our impression of customer journeys. They illuminate how different touchpoints help drive conversions on your site. These models help identify the places we need to put our marketing dollars.
They discuss what happens when you optimize for first and last touch at the same time. Each approach provides unique benefits based on overall business objectives, the customer’s journey, and the level of complexity in the consumer’s decision-making process.
Interpreting Multi-Channel Interactions
First-click attribution may not be SEO’s best friend, but it does give substantial credit to entry points. By giving all the credit to the first touch, we better understand how customers find our brand. For instance, if a consumer clicks on a display ad before exploring further, this model highlights the effectiveness of our awareness campaigns.
This view is especially apparent in inbound heavy industries such as real estate or B2B software. Here, decision-making is measured in weeks or even months. Knowing these first touchpoints helps us improve our tactics to capture that attention.
Last-click attribution just looks at the last interaction before a conversion. This model allows us to identify which channels or touchpoints are convincing customers to finally convert. For example, if a customer purchases after clicking on a retargeting ad, last-click attribution reveals the importance of persistence in driving conversions.
By aggregating our data around these endpoints, we are able to more accurately focus our resources on our best performing channels. Using it in a vacuum could be missing out on previous touchpoints that contributed.
Understanding Influential Touchpoints
Every single touchpoint in a customer’s journey matters. Position-based attribution, as an example, assigns credit to the first and last interactions—usually 50% credit to each. This holistic perspective accepts the truth that conversions are almost never the result of one touch.
For example, a customer might initially learn about our brand as a result of an email campaign. At a later date, they could choose to purchase after joining a webinar. This model allows both types of actions to be appropriately credited, providing a more complete and nuanced picture of the journey.
The Role of Customer Journey Length
Another factor that comes into play with attribution model effectiveness is the length of the customer journey. Long-term decision-making is made so much easier thanks to first-click attribution, because it shows us where the relationships all start.
On the hand, last-click attribution has its place in shorter, tighter cycles – such as e-commerce transactions. Integrating these models with multi-touch approaches allows us to better understand a holistic picture of all interactions.
Alternative Attribution Models
When making determinations for the effectiveness of various marketing strategies, going by just first-click or last-click attribution typically gives a limited view. Alternative attribution models offer a more complex picture. They allow marketers to get a clearer picture of the customer journey and tailor their campaigns more effectively toward those goals.
Linear Attribution Model
The Linear Attribution Model gives equal credit to each touchpoint a customer has prior to conversion. This approach values every single interaction, no matter when they occur in the journey or what influence they have.
If someone clicks on a display banner, interacts with a social post, and then goes to the site through a search ad and makes a purchase, all interactions receive the same amount of credit. Every touch point of their experience counts and matters.
This model is a great way to understand the long-term impact of your work. It uncovers the interactions between channels that lead to and support the overall conversion journey. Its simplicity leaves behind a big blind spot when it comes to the actual influence of the touchpoints.
Time Decay Attribution Model
The Time Decay Attribution Model variation is all about emphasizing the timing of interactions. It weights more credit to touchpoints that happen nearest to the conversion event.
When the user first clicks on that email campaign, then clicks on a social ad, and finally converts after clicking on a search ad, the search ad gets the largest share of credit. This means the social ad takes credit for the next highest, then the email campaign.
This accounting model recognizes that the engagements that are made nearer to the time of decision usually have a deeper impact. It’s especially good for short sales cycles or time-sensitive campaigns where more recent interactions are weighted heavier.
Position-Based Attribution Model
Position-based Attribution gives 40% of the credit to both the first and last interactions. Then the other 20% is divided among all the touchpoints along the way.
For example, if a user first engages through a blog post, follows up with a social media ad, and converts via a paid search ad, the blog and search ad would receive the majority of the credit. This model is much better at balancing acquisition efforts with conversion-driving tactics.
It’s a perfect fit for campaigns that value brand awareness alongside direct response.
Data-Driven Attribution Model
Our Data-Driven Attribution Model uses sophisticated algorithms to scour the depths of millions of actual customer journeys. It assigns credit based on the real-world influence of each touchpoint.
By using machine learning, this method recognizes patterns to determine how to assign appropriate credit and proportionately credits it. For instance, if mid-journey touchpoints consistently lead to higher conversions in a particular campaign, the model adjusts credit distribution accordingly.
This approach is best for data-forward ecosystems, where meaningful optimization is possible through clean performance data analysis.
Algorithmic Attribution Explained
Algorithmic attribution goes one step further, using highly complex statistical models to predict and assign credit to touchpoints dynamically. Rather than using set rules like other models, it instead automatically adjusts through machine learning to shifts in customer behavior and campaign strategy.
This model often incorporates incrementality measurement, which evaluates whether conversions are genuinely driven by paid media or cannibalized from organic sources. For instance, if a campaign shows that paid search ads are merely capturing users who would convert organically, algorithmic attribution can help adjust strategies to focus on more impactful channels.
Combining First and Last Click Data
Unlocking the insights between first and last-click data lets us take a more complete view of the customer journey. Though each model is insightful on its own, attribution model combination uncovers trends that single attribution models fail to see. This method is especially beneficial for companies with extended sales pipelines or omnichannel marketing efforts.
We combine first and last-click data to get a more nuanced picture of how various touchpoints contribute to conversions. This method allows us to not miss any aspect of the customer journey.
A More Comprehensive View
Using a combination of first and last-click attribution will give you a more comprehensive picture of customer behavior. First-click attribution focuses on that very first touchpoint that gets a customer to realize that we have a product or service that might help them. Last-click attribution only focuses on the last touchpoint or interaction that led to a conversion.
Combined, they provide a complete picture of the journey from awareness to action, closing the loop on a full range of influence. For example, a customer may first discover a brand through a Facebook ad. Later on, they could finalize their purchase via a retargeting email campaign.
By looking at both of these metrics, we can begin to understand how these channels are working together to drive results. This strategy is especially important for campaigns that have many touchpoints. For instance, search ads may initiate interest on social media before driving traffic to the final sale.
Pairing these models with Multi-Touch Attribution increases our understanding exponentially. It spreads the credit around over all of the interactions, providing us a more even view.
Identifying Key Conversion Paths
Combining first and last-click data allows us to identify the best-performing conversion paths. For businesses that have intricate multi-channel/multi-touch customer journeys, this is more crucial than ever. By assigning higher weights to more critical touchpoints, we can start to reveal multi-touch conversion patterns.
We assign 40% credit to the first click, 40% to the last click, and 20% to the middle clicks. E-commerce platforms can trace a customer’s path to purchase from when they first find out about a product. They track consumers from search engines to eventual conversions using retargeting ads.
With this understanding, we can continue to duplicate paths to success while recognizing less successful efforts and course correcting.
Optimizing Marketing Spend
A unified approach not only fuels better storytelling, it leads to more intelligent deployment of marketing dollars. First-touch channels such as display ads are powerful at generating interest. At the same time, last-touch approaches like attribution through email campaigns convert.
We can shift budgets to those. This prevents us from overinvesting in one area and underinvesting in another, getting us the greatest overall ROI possible.
Real-World Examples
Attribution models like first click and last click are often debated in terms of their effectiveness, but their true value is best understood through practical applications. Let’s take a look at how these models function in the real world.
Then we can see how they affect corporate, local, state and federal decision-making and resource allocation across industries.
Case Study 1: E-commerce
With the customer journey as the starting point to an omni-channel marketing strategy, this is key in an e-commerce driven world. Meet Sarah, she’s in the market for a new pair of sneakers. Her journey begins with a Facebook ad that catches her attention, leading her to browse your website briefly before leaving without purchasing.
A few days later, she receives an email newsletter from the company she visited containing a discount code. The irresistible deal prompts her to complete her order. In this case, the first-click attribution model gives 100% of the credit to the Facebook ad. This points to the ad’s important function as a first-touch catalyst.
Last-click attribution would attribute that conversion to the email, because that was the last touch that drove the conversion. For businesses, these models impact where companies spend their money. Facebook ads are the biggest force behind this wave of attention.
If we give 70% of the credit to this channel, we have a solid justification for increasing ad spend to expand our reach. If sales are always closed through email campaigns, then doubling down and putting more resources behind email marketing might be the better strategy.
A balanced approach might assign 40% to the first and last touches, with 20% distributed among intermediate interactions to reflect their collective importance.
Case Study 2: Lead Generation
For businesses that are dependent on lead generation, as many SaaS providers are, attribution models provide a clearer understanding of the impact each touchpoint has. Imagine this scenario—an interested client clicks on a Google Search ad and starts exploring the site to find answers.
Later, they click on a Facebook ad and schedule a demo. A last-click model would overweight credit to this Facebook ad, giving it as much as 70% of the conversion value. A first-click model would focus on the Google ad’s contribution to generating the initial interest.
Comprehending this allows marketers to focus their dollars on channels that produce the highest quality leads.
Case Study 3: Subscription Services
Subscription-based experiences tend to have longer customer journeys. Cindy learns about a music streaming service via a targeted Facebook ad. She investigates its offerings online, and signs up once she sees a targeted Google advertisement.
A model splitting credit—40% for the first and last interactions and 20% for the website visit—can provide a nuanced view of each channel’s influence, helping allocate resources effectively.
Challenges and Considerations
If you are measuring first-click vs last-click attribution models, you need to understand the art that is involved. Knowing these challenges and considerations is essential to their successful implementation. These considerations are huge motivators that affect how businesses spend their money, what they understand about consumer action, and how they maximize their effort.
Data Quality and Accuracy
The cornerstone to any attribution model starts with the accuracy and quality of data. First-click and last-click attribution follow customers through multiple touchpoints. Poor quality, incomplete, or inconsistent data can produce misleading results.
Without tracking tools that properly account for mobile interactions or offline conversions, attribution analyses cannot fully rely on their insights. Unfortunately, this failure can leave businesses in the dark about their overall performance. This sometimes results in misattributed credit which negatively impacts important decisions being made.
Having consistent data across platforms and devices is fundamental, and this means having strong data integration methods. An individual company can use something like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics to save a lot of trouble on that data collection side. Without the right setup, gaps in tracking can still occur.
Technological Requirements
Creating and using strong attribution models requires a higher-level technological framework. While first-click attribution is easier, the tracking tools still need to be advanced enough to trace those first customer interactions.
Last-click attribution only needs tracking the last place someone converted. Businesses must be mindful of the compatibility between these models and their current business systems. This includes being sure when making connections, like integrating customer relationship management (CRM) platforms with web analytics tools to ensure data moves smoothly.
Smaller businesses or startups may face challenges with resource constraints, such as limited access to sophisticated tracking tools or technical expertise. These considerations are challenges that can complicate the effective adoption of both models. The growing prevalence of privacy regulations and cookie restrictions further complicates tracking, pushing companies to explore alternatives like server-side tagging for dependable data collection.
Choosing the Right Model
Choosing the right attribution model is a strategic decision. First-click attribution can provide insights into which channels generate the most first touchpoints. Further studies show that 44% of marketers prefer it to measure success across all their digital campaigns.
However, it causes inefficient use of resources since it overlooks the future touchpoints that drive prospects down the funnel to close. On the other hand, last-click attribution gives all the credit to that last step while shortchanging all the preceding touchpoints.
Companies need to consider their objectives, like focusing on new or repeat customers, and determine how much attribution credit every channel should receive. While paid ads bring in users anew, email campaigns help build those relationships.
A hybrid model or weighted attribution would better capture both approaches’ contributions. Metrics like cost per acquisition (CPA) and customer acquisition cost (CAC) can offer further clarity on the performance of each channel.
Conclusion
Attribution models like first-click and last-click are helpful in that they each tell a complementary part of the story. First-click attribution tells you where people are starting the journey and last-click attribution tells you where they make the decision. Both are important, but over-focusing on one or the other leaves a lot of insight untapped. To truly understand customer journeys you have to blend quantitative and qualitative data. Finding new models or creating hybrid methods opens the door to better results that are more precise.
Taking these approaches together, we’re able to get a much bigger picture view of what generates the most engagement and ultimately, conversions. Taking this approach is allowing us to make more informed decisions, improve strategies and more effectively reach our target audience.
Let’s continue to question the status quo and improve our approach, though. The more we understand, the more we can adjust to this rapidly changing digital world. The possibilities are not just limited to that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between first-click and last-click attribution?
First-click attribution gives credit for that conversion-driving click to the very first interaction. While both serve to inform on customer behaviors, each looks at a different stage of the customer journey.
Why is first-click attribution valuable?
First-click attribution is an important method to understand what marketing channels best drive these exploratory buyers. It’s still valuable for getting a sense of what attracts customers to your brand.
What are the disadvantages of last-click attribution?
Ultimately, last-click attribution disregards all other touchpoints that were part of the customer journey. This approach can leave channels responsible for generating awareness or nurturing prospects before the final conversion out in the cold and undervalued.
How do these models impact customer journey analysis?
The right attribution model will reveal which channels and touchpoints along the journey drive conversions. First-click is the opposite, as it attributes the value gained by the search to where the journey started.
What are some alternative attribution models?
Other attribution models are linear, time-decay, and position-based attribution. These give credit to the entire customer journey by assigning value to several touchpoints.
Can you combine first-click and last-click data?
Absolutely, using both together can provide a better overall view of the customer journey. The key to better attribution allows you to finally know how customers discover your brand and complete their journey to converting.
What challenges arise with attribution modeling?
Challenges involve lack of data, cross-device tracking, and an overall oversimplification of a complex customer journey. First click vs last click attribution Choosing the right model will depend on your business goals and available resources.
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