What is the difference between Multi-touch Attribution and other types of Attribution models?

Marketing Attribution Models

Attribution models serve as a set of rules that determine how your marketing touch points receive credit for their impact on a conversion. For example, some marketers may only be interested in the last touch that a customer has with a campaign, or channel before making their purchase. Conversely, you and your team may want to know each of the touch points that the customer had leading to the purchase to understand the full picture.

However you choose to model attribution, it is important for intentionally crafting your customer journey. If you are aware of the touch points your customers have ahead of their purchases, you can better optimize your content and streamline your path to purchase.

Marketing attribution data in Peel exists as multi touch data specifically, which means it follows linear logic in assigning equal credit to all touch points across your customer journey. That means from the first touch to the last touch, every channel that contributed to converting your customer will get credit.

This differs greatly from single-touch attribution, often narrowed down to “first touch attribution” or “last touch attribution,” where only the first touchpoint or last touchpoint receives 100% of the credit for the conversion. These methods of attribution are far less complex than multi touch attribution and miss out on the nuance of all the content, ads, email, and other forms of engagement that contribute to converting your customer.

What are some different kinds of Attribution Models?

Attribution models include: First interaction, last interaction, last non-direct click, linear, time decay, position based.

Each one of these attribution models tells you a different story about the different stages of the customer journey. If you need to optimize for your successful early touch points or you have the best conversions with the last interaction, attribution model data will provide you with evidence for where you should spend your marketing dollars.

First Interaction: where only the first touchpoint receives 100% of the credit for the conversion

Linear: assigning the same percentage of credit to each touchpoint for the conversion

Time Decay: similar to first touch or last touch attribution, marketers may assign more value to touches the closer/further they are to conversion

Position based: this attribution model places a value on where the click/touch occurred, some marketers may prefer earlier clicks over later clicks or vis-versa