Multi-Touch Attribution and Models: A Complete Guide [2025 Edition]

Did you know that the average consumer interacts with 10 different channels before making a purchase? The customer journey involves multiple interactions across multiple touchpoints and channels. Rarely does a conversion or sale happen after just one interaction.

Instead, conversions and sales frequently result from a combination of touchpoints with many sources. There are so many touchpoints, makes it difficult to determine which one contributed most to a conversion.

This is when multi-touch attribution comes in!

In this article, we'll outline the principles of multi-touch attribution, point out the variations among the models, and assist you in appreciating its values. Let's get going.

What is Multi-Touch Attribution?

Multi-touch attribution (MTA), also known as fractional attribution, is a technique for marketing measurement that establishes the importance of every touchpoint made by the customer during the conversion process. It distributes a specific percentage of credit to each channel so you can evaluate the importance of each touchpoint in generating a conversion.

Multi-touch attribution models should be used for campaigns that are dependent on digital spending, like email or online paid advertising that operate across several channels and devices. MTA insights can also be used with automation tools to automate processes like email deployment.

Types of Multi-Touch Attribution Models

Several popular multi-touch attribution models analyze every touchpoint used before conversion. To get you started, here are six of the most popular MTA models with specific multi-touch attribution examples for better illustration.

1. Linear Attribution Model

In the linear attribution model, every touchpoint in the buyer's journey receives equal credit for a conversion. This is sometimes referred to as an even-weighting attribution model.

For example, let’s say you want to measure how effective your marketing efforts are for TrueProfit, and you use the linear attribution model. If a customer sees a native ad on a website and an email from TrueProfit, then decides to buy the product, each touchpoint would get 50% of the credit.

But what if the customer also sees a Youtube commercial and a sponsored promotion from a famous entrepreneur? In that case, each of the 4 touchpoints would get 25% of the credit, even though they may have different levels of influence on the customer.

This is one of the drawbacks of linear attribution. A customer may be more persuaded by a testimonial from a successful entrepreneur than by a generic commercial or an email. However, linear attribution would not reflect this difference and would give the same credit to all touchpoints.

2. Time Decay Attribution Model

A time-decay attribution model assigns more credit to the touchpoints that are closer to the conversion, and less credit to the ones that are further away. This way, it reflects the idea that the last touchpoints (or the most recent) have more influence on the customer’s decision than the first ones (the less recent).

Let's carry on the previous example, but in this case, we'll measure the marketing efforts with the time decay attribution model. If a customer sees four channels in one day and then buys TrueProfit software, the credit distribution would look like this:

The more recent the channel, the more credit it gets. The less recent the channel, the less credit it gets. This means that the sponsored promotion is considered the most influential channel, while the display advertisement is considered the least influential.

3. U-Shaped Attribution Model

The first and last touchpoints in the buyer's journey receive a bigger percentage of credit than the touchpoints in the middle based on the U-shaped attribution model, commonly referred to as a bathtub model.

Similar to the last example, a customer sees four channels before buying TrueProfit. The U-shaped attribution model gives 40% of the credit to the first and last channels, and 10% to each of the middle ones. Therefore, the credit distribution would look like this:

This means that the display advertisement and the sponsored promotion are considered the most influential channels, while the native ad and the online commercial are considered less influential.

As it recognizes that not all touchpoints are created equal, this type of model is a little more complex than the linear attribution model. Furthermore, it's far from flawless because it takes a very straightforward approach to the middle of the client journey.

4. W-Shaped Attribution

The first and last touchpoints of the buyer's journey are credited, and the middle touchpoints are also valued, based on the W-shaped attribution model.

It gives more credit to three key channels that are important for your sales: the first channel that creates awareness, the channel that generates a lead, and the channel that drives conversion. It gives less credit to the other channels that are in between.

For example, let’s say a customer sees five channels before buying TrueProfit:

The W-shaped attribution model gives 30% of the credit to the first, third, and fifth channels, and 5% to each of the second and fourth channels. Therefore, the credit distribution would look like this:

This means that the television commercial, the native ad, and the sponsored promotion are considered the most influential channels, while the display advertisement and the email are considered less influential.

5. Full Path Attribution Model

Full path attribution is a type of multi-touch attribution model that assigns credit to every touchpoint on the customer journey, from the first interaction to the last. It is a comprehensive and detailed way to measure the impact of different marketing channels on your sales.

According to this model, the initial touchpoint, lead generation, opportunity generation, and final customer closing touchpoint each receives 22.5% of the credit, with any subsequent touchpoints receiving 10%.

6. Custom Attribution Model

To evaluate the importance of each touchpoint according to the particular rules of your business, a custom attribution model is developed. This requires giving different touch points weights based on how much of an impact they have on conversion.

You need to first understand the data from your numerous marketing channels to create a custom multi-touch attribution model. Additionally, you need to comprehend how your prospects respond to various touchpoints.

By customizing your multi-touch attribution strategy, you can get the most out of your marketing data. Besides, it allows you to adjust the model to meet your specific requirements and ensures that conversion credit is delivered for all touchpoints.

How To Use Multi-Touch Attribution In Your Business Strategy

Setting up an MTA might be difficult. The increasingly complicated customer journey makes it challenging to select the right model for your store's requirements.

Customers today frequently switch between many devices, channels, and platforms before deciding on one, making it tough to track them given the growing privacy concerns.

That does not, however, mean that you shouldn't begin; the sooner you do so, the quicker your attribution strategy may be optimized. The steps to follow for the best outcomes are listed below:

Step 1: Decide on the models and eCommerce metrics

Following your business objectives, you must choose which multi-touch attribution models to use. Considerations like the length of the sales cycle and the sorts of campaigns should be taken into account while selecting the models.

Then, you may choose your eCommerce metrics. These indicators will be used to assess success or failure. These eCommerce metrics are frequently used to improve ROI and user experience.

Step 2: Build your team

The next step is to bring together everyone who will be a part of the process. Whoever is in charge will be responsible for collecting and analyzing data from all sources.

Managers of analytics and marketing analysis may fall under this category. Purchase agreements from budget stakeholders who have a say in the approval or disapproval of specific activities and expenditures may be required.

The marketing team must also be included because they can enhance various consumer touchpoints based on the data's results.

Step 3: Utilize marketing analytics tools

Utilizing marketing attribution software that allows multi-touch attribution modeling is the next step. This enables you to gather all the attribution information you require in one place, which is necessary for an analysis to be successful.

You must be able to filter and compile data into distinct, understandable, and easily quantifiable measurements while working with a huge number of data.

Choose an attribution system that provides person-level, detailed data in addition to extra insights that may point to the driving force behind a conversion, such as strong brand equity or potent copy.

Step 4: Break down the insights

Once you have your data, you can start mining it for insightful information. You could try looking up responses to the following concerns:

You will have a clear understanding of how your campaign performed once you have responses to all of these queries based on the information provided by your multi-touch attribution model. You may develop a more customized experience for your customers by using those data to start course correction in real time.

After analyzing factors like your sales cycle and channel effectiveness, the next step is assessing the profitability of your efforts. Use our Profit Margin Calculator to track your margins and make informed decisions on where to optimize.

Step 5: Keep testing and optimizing

This shouldn't be done just once. Instead, you should be analyzing your MTA data over time to improve and test your marketing efforts. You'll be able to choose the greatest approaches and marketing sequences to reach your customers at the ideal moments if you regularly optimize and test your campaigns.

What Is The Difference Between Single Source And Multi-Touch Attribution?

The "last click/last touch" or "first click/first touch" attribution model, also known as the single source attribution model, gives one touchpoint sole credit for a conversion.

It reduces the customer journey to a single crucial interaction—either the very first or the very last one that influenced the consumer's choice to make a purchase.

Multi-touch attribution differs from first-touch and last-touch attribution because it doesn't attribute a conversion to the first or last marketing touchpoint a customer experiences before converting.

Let's compare these two primary single-source attribution model categories with the multi-touch attribution model in more detail:

What Are The Drawbacks Of Multi-Touch Attribution?

Although they offer more insights than other marketing measurements, multi-touch attribution models are not flawless. There are a few key difficulties you encounter when you work to refine your attribution measurements.

What Is The Value Of Multi-Touch Attribution?

As it enables you to identify every channel that contributes to a conversion and which of those channels has the greatest influence on a conversion, MTA is extremely helpful. It provides you with a clear picture of how your touchpoints and channels affect each conversion.

This is valuable data that you can utilize to optimize those touchpoints for prospective customers and shorten the buyer's journey. It demonstrates precisely how many touchpoints and channels interact to affect negotiations on a personal level.

Additionally, you can utilize this data to learn more about the concerns of your target market and the elements of the customer experience that have the most impact on their decision-making.

Flexibility will be essential for your business as markets continue to change and consumer expectations adjust to a new standard. By giving you a more detailed picture of what is and isn't working inside your campaigns, multi-touch attribution promotes the flexibility you need

Your team will be able to create data-driven decisions for the next marketing campaigns with complete insight into every touchpoint throughout the consumer journey.

Tracy Ng

Tracy Ng – Senior Content Executive at TrueProfit & SEO/Content Specialist   Tracy is a senior content executive at TrueProfit - specializing in helping eCommerce businesses scale profitably through content. She has over 4 years of experience in eCommerce and digital marketing editorial writing. She develops high-impact content that helps thousands of Shopify merchants make data-driven, profit-focused decisions.