What should I use for marketing attribution?

It depends on what you’re trying to optimize and how much tracking you can realistically implement. Most teams do best with a simple attribution stack rather than one “perfect” model.

Quick recommendation

If you’re asking what to use today, I’d suggest:

• For decision-making on spend: use platform attribution + incrementality testing
• For internal reporting: use multi-touch attribution (MTA) if you have solid user-level tracking
• For high-level strategy: use marketing mix modeling (MMM) if you have enough historical spend and conversion data
• For user journey analysis: use first-touch / last-touch as supporting views, not the main source of truth

Which model to use when

1) Last-touch attribution

Best for: simple reporting, small teams, quick setup
Pros: easy to understand and implement
Cons: overcredits the final click; misses earlier touchpoints
Use if: you need something fast and lightweight

2) First-touch attribution

Best for: understanding acquisition channels
Pros: shows what introduces users
Cons: ignores everything after the first touch
Use if: your main question is “what brings people in?”

3) Multi-touch attribution (MTA)

Best for: digital journeys with trackable users
Pros: credits multiple touchpoints; more nuanced
Cons: depends on good identity resolution and tracking; can be biased by missing data
Use if: you have enough volume and reliable event tracking

4) Marketing mix modeling (MMM)

Best for: channel-level budget allocation, especially with offline/upper-funnel spend
Pros: works without user-level tracking; useful for cross-channel analysis
Cons: needs enough history; less granular; usually slower to update
Use if: you run TV, paid social, search, email, etc., and want budget guidance

5) Incrementality / lift testing

Best for: proving causal impact
Pros: answers “did this actually work?”
Cons: requires experimentation and careful design
Use if: you want to validate whether a channel or campaign is truly driving lift

Practical best practice

Most mature teams use a combination:

• MMM for budget allocation
• MTA for tactical optimization
• Incrementality tests to validate
• Last-click/platform reports for operational monitoring

If you want a default choice

• E-commerce / SaaS with good event tracking: start with MTA + incrementality
• Large multi-channel advertisers: use MMM + incrementality
• Small business: use last-touch at first, then move to MTA if needed

Avoid this common mistake

Don’t rely on one attribution model as absolute truth. Each model answers a different question.

If you want, I can help you choose based on your setup — for example:

• e-commerce vs SaaS vs app
• monthly spend
• channels you use
• whether you have offline conversions
• whether you have user-level tracking