The complete guide to marketing attribution models in 2025

With increasingly complex customer journeys becoming a staple in digital marketing, how do you choose which marketing channels to invest in?

Budgets aren’t bottomless, so choosing the right channel is critical. The wrong decision can cost your business dearly, so it pays to get it right. And this means having the full picture of which touchpoints drive conversions, so you can effectively structure your campaigns to increase leads and sales where it matters.

Marketing attribution models link conversions and revenue to the channels and campaigns that brought in your customers. This data provides hard numbers to inform your decisions and justify your spend.

This comprehensive guide explores the latest marketing attribution models and reveals how software – like Mediahawk – is essential to optimise your activities based on customer behaviours and maximise return on investment (ROI).

What is a marketing attribution model?

A marketing attribution model is a systematic method for measuring and assigning value to the various marketing channels and touchpoints that influence a customer’s decision to convert. Put simply, it’s the process of determining which campaigns, channels, and activities deserve credit for driving leads and sales.

Consider this customer journey example:

Emma discovers your brand by searching on Google and clicking through to your website with a link in your Google ad. Later, she receives your email retargeting campaign and opens your newsletter. Finally, she calls you after clicking through a Facebook ad.

Each of these touchpoints played a crucial role in Emma’s conversion. A marketing attribution model helps you understand how much credit each touchpoint should receive, enabling you to make more informed decisions about where to invest your marketing budget.

Single touch versus multi-touch attribution

Marketing attribution models fall into two primary categories: single-touch and multi-touch attribution. Each model works differently to provide insights into how effectively your campaigns drive conversions.

Single-touch attribution assigns 100% of the conversion credit to just one touchpoint in the customer journey. This is either the first (first touch attribution) or last (last touch attribution) interaction a customer has with your business. While simple to implement and monitor, single-touch models offer an incomplete picture of the customer journey.

Multi-touch attribution models spread the credit across multiple touchpoints in the customer’s path to purchase. The credit is either dispersed evenly across all touchpoints or assigned more in certain interactions, depending on the model. Multi-touch models recognise the complexities of modern customer journeys, offering a fuller picture of how various campaigns and channels work together to drive results.

Why marketing attribution matters in 2025

The importance of marketing attribution has intensified significantly in 2025.

Consumers no longer follow a straightforward path to conversion, but instead, will interact with your brand across numerous channels and campaigns. If you want to know what truly drives your conversions, you need to have the right software to measure and analyse customer journeys in full.

What’s more, digital touchpoints aren’t the only thing driving conversions. If you’re not accurately tracking your phone calls and attributing them to various campaigns and channels, you’re missing out on several opportunities to improve your marketing. Call tracking, for example, bridges the gap between your online and offline campaigns, which is vital for revealing the true value of each touchpoint in the customer journey.

Privacy is also becoming key in marketing, with increasing concerns about consumer data and security. As a result, marketing attribution models that balance accuracy with compliance have gained traction.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven attribution models are also now more prevalent, due to their sophisticated methods of processing vast amounts of data efficiently and uncovering hidden patterns more accurately than traditional models.

The main types of marketing attribution models

Understanding the various marketing attribution models you can implement will help you choose the right approach for your marketing needs. Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of the most important models:

First touch attribution

First touch attribution assigns 100% credit to the very first marketing touchpoint a customer encounters. In our earlier example with Emma, this model would only credit the initial Google search ad that introduced her to your brand.

The rationale is simple: Your customer wouldn’t have known about your business, product, or service without that first interaction. Thus, the full value of the conversion is assigned to that channel.

This method is particularly useful for marketers wanting to understand top-of-funnel behaviour to broaden their reach and impact.

First touch, or first click, attribution model.

Last touch attribution

Last touch attribution gives 100% credit to the final touchpoint before conversion. For instance, if a customer reaches your website via organic search, and then later returns after clicking a link on your Instagram ad before making a purchase, last touch would credit the Instagram campaign as the final touchpoint before a conversion.

This attribution model recognises the final interaction of a customer journey as the most influential in driving leads and sales. This works well for businesses with short sales cycles where the last touchpoint typically serves as the most important deal-closer.

Last-click, or last-touch, attribution model

Linear attribution

Linear attribution distributes conversion credit evenly across all touchpoints in the customer journey. If a customer journey consisted of four touchpoints, each interaction would receive 25% credit.

This model is good for understanding the full customer journey and identifying which content or touchpoints customers engage with at each stage. It’s particularly valuable for businesses with longer, more complex sales cycles where each interaction is equally important in securing a conversion.

Linear attribution model

Time-decay attribution

Time-decay attribution assigns increasing credit to touchpoints as they get closer to conversion. Earlier interactions receive less credit, while more recent touchpoints receive progressively more weight. Essentially, the first touchpoint receives the lowest credit, and the last receives the highest.

This model recognises that some customer journeys build momentum over time, and recent interactions are generally more influential in driving conversions. It’s particularly effective for B2B companies or high-consideration purchases, where the final stages are most significant in the decision-making process.

Time decay attribution model

Position-based (U-shaped) attribution

The U-shaped marketing attribution model assigns 40% credit each to the first and last touchpoints, with the remaining 20% distributed equally among all the touchpoints in between.

This model is ideal for businesses that recognise the greater importance of customer acquisition (first touch) and conversion (last touch) in a customer journey. However, it still acknowledges the role of nurturing activities.

Position-based, or U-shaped, attribution model

W-shaped attribution model

W-shaped attribution gives equal weight (typically 30% each) to three key moments in the customer journey: first touch, middle touch, and last touch. The remaining 10% is credited evenly to any other touchpoints in the journey.

This model puts an emphasis on lead creation (the first interaction) and conversion (the last interaction), whilst also recognising the middle point in the journey that helps funnel customers along.

It also helps identify opportunity creation – a significant shifting point in the customer’s decision-making process that spurs them towards conversion.

This model is excellent for B2B companies with distinct stages in their sales funnel, as it helps identify which channels are most effective at each critical stage.

W-shaped attribution model

Z-shaped attribution model

The Z-shaped attribution model extends the W-shaped approach by adding a fourth key moment: the sales-qualified lead (SQL) stage.

Credit is typically distributed at 22.5% each to first touch, lead creation, opportunity creation, and SQL creation, with the remaining 10% spread across other touchpoints.

This model is ideal for longer, more complex B2B sales cycles with multiple decision-makers. It’s particularly valuable if you have sophisticated lead qualification processes and clear sales stages, and want to have close alignment with the data shared between marketing and sales teams.

Data-driven attribution (AI-powered)

Data-driven attribution models use AI and machine learning algorithms to analyse data from various marketing channels, identifying the touchpoints that contributed to conversion. Where this model differs from other multi-touch attribution models, is that it uses AI to determine and assign credit based on actual impact and customer behaviour patterns, without having any static rules.

This model is ideal for businesses with substantial data volumes and complex customer journeys, where it’s beneficial to have AI software that adapts dynamically to consumer behaviour and market trends. This provides a real-time, adaptive attribution framework that can efficiently monitor and derive insights from various marketing channels and large conversion volumes.

How to choose the right attribution model for your business

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to selecting the right marketing attribution model. You must carefully consider several business-specific factors to ensure you choose the right approach for your marketing requirements. Some of these factors include:

• Business type considerations: E-commerce businesses with shorter sales cycles might benefit from last touch or time-decay models, whereas B2B companies involving complex cycles and multi-stakeholder decisions often find W-shaped or Z-shaped models more valuable. Data-driven attribution is ideal if you want to manage large volumes of data efficiently and derive insights that help you understand customer behaviours.
• Sales cycle length: Short sales cycles (days or weeks) work well with single-touch models or simple multi-touch approaches. Medium-length cycles (weeks to months) benefit from time-decay or position-based models. Longer, more complex cycles (months to years) typically require W-shaped, Z-shaped, or data-driven models.
• Marketing channel diversity: Businesses using fewer channels might find single-touch attribution sufficient. If you have diverse marketing mixes and campaigns across several channels, you need sophisticated multi-touch models to understand cross-channel interactions that lead to conversions.
• Conversion goals: If your primary focus is lead generation, first touch or W-shaped models are great for identifying the most effective prospecting channels. If you have a focus on nurturing a lead over longer sales cycles, linear or time-decay models can provide better insights. Revenue-focused businesses often benefit from last touch or data-driven attribution that emphasises the touchpoints most influential for sales.
• Data quality and analytics maturity: Businesses with limited tracking capabilities should start by implementing simpler models before advancing to complex, data-driven approaches. If you have robust analytics infrastructure and already use marketing analytics solutions, more sophisticated attribution methods can provide the next-level insights to boost your leads and sales.

Benefits of using marketing attribution models in 2025

Implementing proper marketing attribution models will deliver significant advantages in your marketing strategies:

• Enhanced ROI understanding – Attribution models reveal which channels and campaigns actually drive valuable conversions, including leads, sales, and phone calls.
• Optimised budget allocation – Multi-touch and data-driven attribution models reveal how each channel contributes to the entire customer journey, resulting in more precise budget allocation.
• Improved campaign strategy – Full-funnel analytics identify which channels and activities drive quality leads, and reveal where customers drop off. This will inform better campaign planning across paid, organic, and offline channels.
• Better marketing-sales alignment – Attribution models provide shared visibility into which marketing activities contribute towards sales and revenue, supporting better collaboration between marketing and sales teams
• Future-proofing against changes – Privacy-centric attribution approaches help build resilience against things like data loss and platform changes, helping you maintain measurement accuracy as industries and technologies evolve.

Mediahawk’s approach to marketing attribution

Finding out which touchpoints in the customer journey have the greatest impact on conversions makes it easier to make productive decisions.

You’ll be able to:

• Adjust your marketing spend to optimise the most profitable campaigns.
• Improve targeting by understanding the messages, images, content, and channels that customers respond to and when.
• Receive accurate insights to reach the right customer, at the right time, with the right message, to increase conversions and improve your marketing return on investment.

Mediahawk recognises that effective marketing attribution extends beyond simple digital touchpoints to include critical offline interactions and multi-channel activities. Our comprehensive marketing attribution platform pinpoints which marketing activity brings you the most leads and sales, so you can make the right data-driven decision to maximise your ROI where it matters.

Request a demo from Mediahawk today to take advantage of call intelligence, marketing attribution, and cross-channel reporting, which really make a difference to your bottom line.

FAQs about marketing attribution models

Here are the top FAQs about marketing attribution models:

Which is the best attribution model?

The best attribution model for your business depends on several factors, including your business type, sales cycle length, marketing channel variety, and specific goals. Simpler models (like first and last touch) work better for shorter cycles or limited tracking capabilities, while complex multi-touch and data-driven models (like W-shaped and AI-powered) provide accurate insights for longer, more complex sales cycles with large volumes of data.

What is the attribution theory in marketing?

The attribution theory in marketing is the framework for understanding how credit should be assigned to different marketing touchpoints that influence customer behaviours. It recognises that conversions rarely result from single interactions, but instead, are generated from multiple interactions across various channels and stages throughout the customer’s journey.

What is the Z-shaped attribution model?

The Z-shaped attribution model assigns 22.5% conversion credit to four key stages: first touch, lead creation, opportunity creation, and sales-qualified lead (SQL) creation. The remaining 10% is distributed among other touchpoints. This model is suited for longer B2B sales cycles involving several channels and decision-makers.

What is the difference between single-touch and multi-touch attribution models?

Single-touch attribution models assign 100% conversion credit to one touchpoint – either the first (first touch attribution) or last (last touch attribution) – while multi-touch attribution distributes credit across multiple touchpoints in the customer journey. Single-touch models are simpler but provide incomplete insights, whereas multi-touch models offer the full picture of how several channels work together to drive conversions.

This article was originally published in January 2021, and updated in June 2025.