Market Core · Customer Journey · Module
Attribution
How credit is assigned across touchpoints, on a stated model, with its limits recorded — because the purpose is better budget decisions rather than a defensible number.
The idea
How it works
Every attribution model is wrong in a known direction. Last-click over-credits the final touch and channels that capture existing demand; first-touch over-credits discovery. Choosing one is choosing which error to make.
The only reliable answer to contribution is a holdout: withhold the channel and see what happens. It is uncomfortable, it costs some demand, and it is the difference between a budget decision and a guess.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
State the model and its bias
Which model, and which direction it errs in. A number without that is used as though it were true.
- 02
Test contribution by withholding
Geographic or temporal holdouts answer the question that no model can.
- 03
Do not attribute what you cannot observe
Word of mouth, conversations and offline influence are real and invisible. Assigning their effect to a tracked channel is the standard error.
- 04
Use it for decisions, not for reporting
Attribution exists to decide where the next pound goes. As a performance report it mainly settles internal arguments.
One level in
The components of attribution
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The unobservable
What influences purchase and cannot be tracked, named so it is not assigned elsewhere.
Learn
Every attribution model is wrong in a known direction. Choosing one is choosing which error you prefer.
The other modules in customer journey
The buying stages
What actually happens between first awareness and purchase, drawn from buyers rather than from a template — including the parts that are invisible.
LearnDrop-off
Where people leave, in what proportion, and why — because the stage with the largest loss is the one worth working on, whatever the current plan says.
LearnWhat moves people forward
What actually causes progression between stages, established by asking buyers rather than by inferring from what was clicked.
Learn