Understanding Multi-Touch Attribution: A Guide For Marketers

What is Multi-Touch Attribution?

In the digital marketing world, understanding how leads and conversions happen is essential. When a potential customer interacts with multiple marketing touchpoints before making a purchase, it can be difficult to determine which marketing channel should get credit for the sale. This is where multi-touch attribution comes into play.

Multi-touch attribution (MTA) is the practice of distributing credit for a conversion across all the marketing touchpoints that a consumer interacts with during their purchase journey, rather than assigning full credit to a single touchpoint. This approach allows marketers to gain a more accurate understanding of the role each channel plays, enabling them to optimize campaigns more effectively.

Why is Multi-Touch Attribution Important?

Without multi-touch attribution, businesses often fall into the trap of relying on single-touch attribution models, like first-click or last-click attribution. However, neither paints a full picture. In a customer journey, users may interact with a variety of touchpoints such as paid search ads, social media posts, email campaigns, and other forms of content before making a purchase.

By using multi-touch attribution, businesses can gain better insight into the contribution of various channels. This can lead to optimized marketing budgets, enhanced performance measurement, and ultimately a stronger overall marketing strategy.

The Types of Attribution Models

There are several types of attribution models used in multi-touch attribution. These models attempt to assign weight or credit to different touchpoints in the customer journey, depending on the model’s logic. Here are some of the most popular ones:

• First-click attribution – This model assigns 100% credit to the first touchpoint in the customer’s journey, regardless of any other interactions leading up to the conversion.
• Last-click attribution – As the name implies, last-click attribution gives all the credit to the last touchpoint a customer interacted with before making a conversion.
• Linear attribution – In the linear model, credit for the conversion is distributed equally across every touchpoint throughout the entire customer journey. This ensures that no single interaction is more important than the others.
• Time Decay attribution – Time decay attribution assigns more credit to touchpoints that occurred closer to the conversion event. Earlier touchpoints still get credit, but not as much.
• Position-based attribution – This model assigns higher emphasis to the first and last touchpoints—often 40% to the first touch and 40% to the last, with the remaining 20% distributed across the middle interactions.
• Custom or algorithmic attribution – Some advanced marketers and tools may use machine learning or custom data science models that analyze a wide range of touchpoint data to determine how much credit should be applied to each interaction.

Benefits of Multi-Touch Attribution

There are several key benefits to implementing multi-touch attribution in your marketing strategy:

Challenges in Multi-Touch Attribution

While multi-touch attribution offers several benefits, there are also notable challenges that companies may face:

• Data collection and integration – To achieve accurate multi-touch attribution, businesses must have sufficient data from all marketing channels. This requires a robust system to collect, integrate, and analyze data across platforms, which can be complex and expensive.
• Cross-device tracking – Many consumers use multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, desktops) when interacting with a brand. Tracking user behavior across devices and ensuring the data reflects one user's journey necessitates advanced tracking solutions.
• Attribution window settings – Determining how long to track interactions before attributing the conversion is another challenge. Setting the wrong attribution window might overlook key interactions or include irrelevant touchpoints.
• Team Buy-In – Implementing multi-touch attribution often requires a change in how marketing and sales teams look at data. Getting the entire team to trust the new insights and adjust their strategies accordingly can be a cultural hurdle for many organizations.

Multi-Touch Attribution vs. Single-Touch Attribution

For many years, single-touch attribution models like first-click and last-click have been popularly used in marketing reporting. These models are simpler, easier to implement, and easier for teams to align on since there’s only one point of focus. However, simplicity often leads to missing out on key data insights.

In contrast, multi-touch attribution provides a more detailed view of the entire customer journey. A key distinction between them comes down to the difference between giving full credit to one touchpoint (single-touch) versus distributing credit based on the weights across every customer interaction (multi-touch).

While single-touch is easier to manage, it often doesn’t capture the complexity of modern, omnichannel marketing efforts. Multi-touch provides the greater depth of insight that today's complex buying behavior demands but often requires a greater investment of time, resources, and technology.

Choosing the Right Attribution Model for Your Business

The right attribution model depends on your business’s marketing strategy, sales cycle, and available resources. For example:

• If your business typically has short customer journeys with one or two interactions before a conversion, single-touch attribution models could suffice.
• If your business sees a longer journey with multiple engagements across numerous platforms, investing in a multi-touch attribution model, such as linear or position-based, might be necessary.
• If you have the resources to implement advanced technology, machine learning-based attribution can provide comprehensive insights.

Tools for Multi-Touch Attribution

Several tools exist today for companies looking to implement multi-touch attribution in their marketing strategies. Some of the popular platforms include:

• HubSpot – CRM software with built-in multi-touch attribution reporting capabilities.
• Google Analytics – Allows you to set up custom attribution windows and model comparisons for different marketing channels.
• Attribution – Focuses specifically on marketing attribution and integrates with numerous platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook, and Shopify.
• Adobe Analytics – A high-end platform with comprehensive attribution reporting features suitable for large organizations.

Conclusion

Multi-touch attribution is reshaping the way marketers understand the effectiveness of their campaigns in a digital world where customers engage with multiple channels before making a purchase decision. This model helps businesses make data-driven decisions, optimize campaign performance, and justify marketing spend allocation.

However, switching to a multi-touch attribution model can come with its own logistical challenges, from collecting and managing vast amounts of data to getting internal buy-in from teams. Nonetheless, for businesses that take advantage of this enhanced understanding of the customer journey, the potential benefits far outweigh the investment.

Consider the right tools, data integration strategies, and attribution models that fit your business when starting out, and keep refining your approach as you collect richer insights over time.