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Attribution software

Software that assigns conversion credit across the touchpoints in a buyer's journey. Categorized by approach: last-click, multi-touch rule-based, multi-touch ML-driven, and data-driven.

Attribution software refers to systems that assign credit for conversions across the touchpoints in a buyer’s journey. Attribution becomes meaningful when there are multiple touchpoints — which is most B2B and increasingly most ecom. The category is adjacent to but distinct from automated bidding software.

The attribution-model taxonomy

• Last-click. 100% credit to the final touch. The default in most ad platforms. Structurally biased against top-of-funnel.
• First-click. 100% credit to the first touch. The inverse bias of last-click.
• Linear. Equal credit per touch (1/N). Simple but blind to recency and position.
• U-shaped. 40% to first, 40% to last, 20% spread across middle. Useful when intro and close are clearly the most influential moments.
• Time-decay. Credit decays exponentially with time since touch. Heavily weights recent touches.
• Data-driven (DDA). ML-based model that learns from your conversion paths. Requires sufficient conversion volume to train.

Why attribution matters for bidding

Attribution choice directly affects what bidding tools optimize against. If the bidding tool sees last-click conversion data, it will systematically over-fund bottom-funnel campaigns. If it sees multi-touch attribution data, it will distribute its optimization more accurately across the funnel.

For B2B accounts especially, the attribution-bidding pairing is consequential. A bidding system optimizing on last-click data will defund the top-funnel campaigns that produce the leads — an own-goal that’s only visible if you trace the funnel end-to-end.

Vendor landscape

Notable vendors in the category:

• HockeyStack — B2B revenue attribution
• Dreamdata — enterprise B2B attribution
• Bizible (Marketo Measure) — Adobe-stack attribution
• Triple Whale — ecom multi-touch
• Northbeam — ecom multi-touch
• Ruler Analytics — call + form attribution

See also

• Automated bidding software — depends on attribution data quality

Maintained by Ruchika Rajput. Methodology and disclosures at methodology.