Imagine you’re running an online store, and you’ve spent a lot of time and money on ads, email campaigns, and social media posts. Yet, when you look at your sales, the results don’t match your expectations. You’re not sure which part of your marketing strategy is truly driving sales and which part isn’t delivering. Does the Google ad you ran last week deserve credit? Or was it the email campaign you sent last month?

This is a problem many businesses face: they don’t know which marketing touchpoints are really making a difference. Without this clarity, they end up spending money on the wrong channels, missing out on opportunities for growth, and possibly even losing customers along the way.

The good news? Attribution Models are here to solve that problem. By using attribution models, you can figure out which channels—Google Ads, Email Marketing, Social Media, Organic Search, or even Referral Traffic—are actually leading to conversions. With this knowledge, you can make smarter decisions, improve your marketing strategy, and ultimately, boost your sales.

The Problem: Uncertainty in Marketing Decisions

Let’s take the example of Sarah, who runs an online fashion boutique. She’s been running ads on Google, posting on Instagram, and sending out weekly email newsletters to her subscribers. Sarah is seeing some sales, but she can’t figure out which part of her marketing is driving those purchases.

Sarah’s Google Ads campaign brought people to her site, but so did her email campaign, and her Instagram posts were generating engagement too. She isn’t sure if her Google Ads are worth the spend, or if her loyal customers from Instagram are the real reason for her sales.

In this scenario, Sarah is experiencing the challenge of understanding her customer journey. Without clear insight into which touchpoints matter the most, she risks wasting money on ineffective marketing channels while missing opportunities to double down on the strategies that work.

The Solution: Attribution Models

This is where Attribution Models come in—offering Sarah the clarity she needs to allocate her marketing budget wisely.

Attribution modeling answers the question: Which touchpoint(s) along the customer journey are responsible for the conversion?

By understanding the contribution of each channel—whether it’s Google Ads, Email Marketing, Organic Search, or Social Media—Sarah can make more informed decisions and optimize her marketing efforts.

Let’s break down the solution in a simple way using different attribution models that will help Sarah (and you) understand which marketing touchpoints deserve credit for conversions.

Types of Attribution Models: How Each One Helps Sarah

1. Last Click Attribution

This model gives all the credit to the last touchpoint that the customer interacted with before making a purchase. So, if Sarah’s customer clicked on a Google ad and then made a purchase on her website, the Google Ads campaign gets 100% of the credit.

Example:

• Customer Journey: Google Ads → Email → Purchase
• Attribution: Google Ads gets all the credit, even though the email campaign played a role in nurturing the lead.

When to use: Sarah would use this model if she wants to measure the effectiveness of the final interaction—helpful for short-term campaigns where immediate conversions are key.

2. First Click Attribution

Here, all the credit goes to the first interaction a customer has with the brand. So, if a customer discovers Sarah’s boutique via an Instagram post and later converts after interacting with a Google ad, Instagram gets the credit.

Example:

• Customer Journey: Instagram → Google Ads → Purchase
• Attribution: Instagram gets 100% of the credit for the conversion.

When to use: Sarah can use this model if she’s interested in understanding how her awareness-building campaigns (like social media posts) are driving conversions.

3. Linear Attribution

With this model, Sarah assigns equal credit to every touchpoint along the customer journey. If a customer interacts with Google Ads, Email Marketing, and Instagram before making a purchase, all channels get an equal share of the credit.

Example:

• Customer Journey: Google Ads → Email Marketing → Instagram → Purchase
• Attribution: Each channel gets 33.33% of the credit.

When to use: This model is useful for businesses like Sarah’s, where all touchpoints play a critical role in moving customers down the funnel.

4. Time Decay Attribution

This model places more value on the touchpoints that happen closer to the conversion. So, if a customer saw a Google ad and then received an email just before purchasing, the email gets more credit.

Example:

• Customer Journey: Google Ads → Email → Purchase
• Attribution: Email gets more credit than Google Ads, because it’s closer to the actual purchase.

When to use: This model works best for longer sales cycles, where recent interactions are more influential in pushing customers to convert.

5. Position-Based Attribution

This model gives 40% of the credit to both the first and last touchpoints, and the remaining 20% is evenly distributed among the middle interactions. This is ideal when Sarah wants to emphasize both the initial awareness and the final decision-making process.

Example:

• Customer Journey: Google Ads → Instagram → Email → Purchase
• Attribution: Google Ads and Email each get 40%, while Instagram gets 20%.

When to use: Sarah might choose this model if she values both brand awareness (first touchpoint) and the final decision-making process (last touchpoint).

How Attribution Models Solve Sarah’s Problem

By using the appropriate attribution model, Sarah can now see how each channel contributes to her sales. Let’s say Sarah wants to understand how her marketing efforts lead to sales:

• With Last Click Attribution, she might see that Google Ads are driving the final sale. But she won’t know if her social media or email campaigns are helping nurture leads.
• With First Click Attribution, she’ll understand that social media is a powerful channel for getting customers interested in her boutique.
• Linear Attribution gives equal weight to all touchpoints, so she can see that each interaction—whether it’s Instagram, email, or Google Ads—plays an important role.
• Time Decay Attribution tells her that customers who engaged with her brand more recently (through email, for example) are more likely to convert.
• Position-Based Attribution helps her understand that both Google Ads (for awareness) and email (for closing the sale) are crucial.

With this clear insight into her customer journey, Sarah can optimize her marketing budget, invest more in high-performing channels, and ultimately increase her sales.

Attribution Models Summary

Here’s a simple summary table of how different attribution models assign credit to various marketing channels in a typical customer journey:

Attribution Model	Google Ads	Email Marketing	Instagram	Organic Search	Referral Traffic
Last Click	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%
First Click	0%	0%	100%	0%	0%
Linear	25%	25%	25%	25%	25%
Time Decay	10%	40%	20%	20%	10%
Position-Based	40%	10%	20%	10%	10%

Conclusion

Attribution models give marketers like Sarah the clarity needed to optimize their marketing strategies. By understanding the impact of different touchpoints, Sarah can allocate her budget more effectively, create better customer journeys, and ultimately increase conversions. Whether you’re focused on Google Ads, Email Marketing, or Instagram, understanding Attribution Models will help you identify what really drives sales and where to invest your resources for maximum impact.