Introduction

People don’t buy after seeing one ad. This article explains how tracking every step helps you know what really drives sales.

What's the problem it solves?

Most marketing tools give all the credit to just one step in the buyer journey. This hides the real story of what got a customer to buy. Multi-touch attribution fixes that by showing how each action plays a role.

Quick Summary

Multi-touch attribution is a way to track every point where a customer interacts with your brand before making a purchase. Instead of giving all the credit to the first or last click, it splits the credit among all important steps. For example, if someone first finds you through a podcast, then sees a Facebook ad, and later buys from an email link, this system shows how each part helped.

There are different models to divide this credit: some give equal value to every step, others give more to the last few, and some focus on the start and end. Businesses can even build their own model based on what matters most to them. Using tools like HockeyStack, teams can track this easily, link it to revenue, and make smarter choices on where to spend their marketing money. The article also explains how to set it up, choose the right model, and fix common problems like bad data or short tracking windows.

Key Takeaways from the article

• Multi-touch attribution shows how all marketing steps help lead to a sale, not just the first or last one.
• There are several models: linear (equal credit), time-decay (recent actions matter more), U-shaped (start and end matter most), W-shaped (start, middle, end all matter), and custom models.
• Choosing the right model depends on your business, sales cycle, and goals.
• Tools like HockeyStack help track these steps and connect them to revenue in one place.
• Setting up attribution takes planning, clean data, and tools that work together.
• Big problems include missing offline actions, tracking users across devices, and choosing the wrong time window.
• Solving these problems means using first-party data, better tools, and testing before going all in.
• Attribution helps companies stop guessing and focus on what really works.

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