Attribution tool statistics all marketers should know

The journey from advertising to conversion can be complicated. With so many different channels driving the same goal, leading to so many different paths to purchase, it can be complicated for marketers to fully understand where their marketing efforts are best placed.

A survey by Google found that over half of consumers take at least six actions before they actually make a purchase. It’s not only important for advertisers and marketers to understand which platforms play a part in capturing their customer, but also when each platform does, so they can correctly attribute which platforms are working best.

Marketing attribution tools can help marketers display this information in one place, making their output more efficient, as well as showcasing the advertising efforts made. Below, we’ll look at the different levels of attribution, as well as key attribution tools that all marketers should be aware of.

What is marketing attribution, and why is it important?

Put simply, marketing attribution is a process that businesses, and their marketing teams, can use to understand which channel, campaign, message or ad creative is working best for their end-goal. They can answer questions like ‘which paid social ad is working best for generating leads?’, or ‘are our google ads capturing the customer at the stage of the journey?’.

By knowing the detail on platform performance, and being able to attribute back marketing efforts to these channels, marketers can ensure their activity, spend and efforts are as efficient as possible.

Marketing attribution models

Attribution typically falls into two categories: single-touch and multi-touch.

Single-touch attribution is a measurement that assigns all the credit for any conversion to a single touchpoint during the customer journey. This breaks down further into two different categories: first-touch attribution, and last-touch attribution.

• First-touch attribution credits the first interaction the customer had with your brand or business, this could be a paid social ad for example.
• Last-touch attribution credits the last interaction a user had before they converted, like a direct URL link. This ignores any of the touchpoints prior that ultimately helped the user reach that final destination.

Multi-touch attribution looks at all touch-points the user engaged with leading up to the conversion, considering them more accurate in the eyes of the advertiser as all stages are accounted for.

There are multiple models that can be used for multi-touch attribution, including:

• Linear: recording each touch-point and giving equal credit to each.
• U-Shaped: opposite, this scores the different channels separately, noting that some are more important than others on the lead up to the purchase. The first and last touch-points are credited with more responsibility with the rest divided amongst any touch-points in between.
• Time Decay: similarly to u-shaped, this model weighs each touch-point differently but gives the last touch-points more credit than those before it.

Attribution on paid social

With Paid Social advertising acting as the upper funnel stages of a customer journey, and contributing to the messy middle, attribution models and attribution tools are incredibly important for showcasing just how much work this channel does in the conversion journey.

Our Head of Paid Social Harriet Tuite says ‘Attribution is always tricky to get accurate, but it is extremely important to demonstrate the value of paid social and its impact on other channels. Paid social is a channel that covers many touch points in the customer journey, from the initial trigger point through to the point of conversion, so it’s vital that we’re looking at different attribution models to factor all this in. Third party tools can be beneficial in this, as they can provide you with a fuller conversion journey picture than more go-to methods of tracking such as GA4 and the platform itself.’

Attribution on PPC

With multiple touch-point also being used within PPC strategy, attribution models are crucial in determining how much value each conversion is in the customer journey.

Since users will interact with multiple ads before converting, choosing the right model helps us to understand specifically which campaigns and keywords contribute to the most success. This enables us to effectively allocate budget, adjust bids and optimise overall campaign performance.

By assigning value to each touch-point, we can ensure that credit isn’t mistakenly given to the last ad clicked when interacting across multiple channels and devices. This prevents over-investment in bottom funnel campaigns, whilst undervaluing awareness and consideration campaigns, which can play a crucial role in driving conversions over time.

Attribution models therefore enable PPC marketers to make data-driven decisions to improve overall revenue and meet client goals by tracking and analysing more effectively.

Statistics on attribution:

• 56% of marketers believe attribution is important to their work.
• 41% of marketers use last touch as their attribution approach for online channels.
• 44% of marketers say that a ‘first touch’ model is more useful for measuring their digital campaigns.
• 75% of businesses use multi-touch attribution models to measure performance.
• 84% of marketers are confident that their work impacts overall business revenue.
• However only 60% feel confident in reporting on Return on Investment.
• 25% of marketers cited challenges within their organisation or business structure as the No.1 reason they haven’t adopted data-driven attribution.
• 58% of marketers use a marketing attribution tool.

What are attribution tools?

Attribution tools collect data on the user interactions across the marketing channels involved, helping advertisers understand which marketing channels are driving conversions, or at least supporting part of the journey.

Attribution tools work by collecting data from various different connectors and sources, reporting on metrics from ad clicks to website visits and purchase behaviour. They then use formulas, algorithms and artificial intelligence to analyse this data across the touchpoints in the journey.

Attribution tools like Google Analytics 4, Triple Whale, Funnel and Hubspot are widely used by marketers.

Benefits of attribution tools

Attribution tools can be really beneficial for both marketing teams and the wider business, to understand how their company’s marketing output is working online.

• Streamlined reporting: by breaking down the different touchpoints and interactions across multiple devices and channels reporting across activity can all be done in one place.

• Better investment choices: with visibility of which channels are working at each stage, advertisers can push more spend into certain areas to push performance and alternatively, reduce spend in areas that aren’t as effective or important.
• Insight into customer behaviour: from channels they engage with, to which devices they’re on or simply age and demographic insight, attribution tools can show user behaviour across the journey. This can lead to tailored creative and messaging, as well as alternative strategies.

Using Google Analytics 4 for attribution

For almost two decades, Google Analytics has served as an essential web marketing attribution tool. Now Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the platform has evolved over the years to offer more and more reporting breakdowns and capabilities, including now offering multi-touch attribution. This attribution capability includes enhanced conversion path reports and property-level attribution too.

There are three attribution model options available on GA4:

• Data Driven: using machine learning to decide how to divide credit across key events.
• Paid and Organic Last Click: allocating 100 per cent of the credit to the most recent channel that the customer engaged with before they converted.
• Google Paid Channels: another last-click attribution, allocating 100 per cent of the credit to the most recent Google Ads channel that the customer engaged with before they converted.

Statistics on Google Analytics 4:

• In 2024 it was reported that 44 million sites are using Google Analytics, with 14.2 million websites currently using GA4.
• The United States has the largest number of GA4 users in the world with an estimated 3.2 million websites. Japan ranks second in terms of GA4 usage with United Kingdom, Russia and Brazil following.
• McDonald’s Hong Kong implemented GA4 properties by taking advantage of predictive audiences to engage likely purchasers. This strategy increased conversions by 550%, decreased Cost-per-action by 63% and increased revenue by 560%. 
• Lider also saw success when using GA4, focusing campaign reach to Android app users with predictive audiences in Analytics whilst using these insights to re-engage users with App campaigns in Google Ads. This led to cost-per-action reducing 85% and improving conversion rate for ‘Likely 7-day purchasers’ audience to 5.4%. 
• Additionally, Claro Shop used GA4 as their primary analytics solution around the Mexican holiday period of Buen Fin. This upgrade gave them access to insights to optimise campaigns based on user behaviour, increasing conversion rate 6 times and decreasing cost-per-action by 78%.

Funnel

Funnel is the only multi-touch attribution solution with an integration Data Hub to give marketers the access to all information they need. This Data Hub automates tasks like API management, refreshes data regularly and ensures a single source of truth.

Statistics on Funnel:

• Funnel customers see an average increase in returns on advertising spend by 26% over the first two years using Funnel.
• There are over 500 connectors available on Funnel.
• Over 2,500 customers use Funnel.
• It’s trusted by over 700 leading agencies.
• Limango saw a 20% reduction in their cost-per-leads for feed-based ads.
• Sephora saved 75% on data processing costs when using Funnel.
• Storeis saw a 190% growth in analytics services when using Funnel.

HubSpot:

HubSpot is an AI-powered customer platform with software and integrations needed to connect marketing, sales and customer service.

Within HubSpot, there are six different hubs for use, to give all teams a unified view of each relevant stage of the customer journey:

• Marketing Hub
• Sales Hub
• Service Hub
• Content Hub
• Operations Hub
• Commerce Hub

Statistics on HubSpot:

• HubSpot is voted #1 in 571 Reports
• HubSpot is available in over 135 countries.
• There are over 228,000 customers on HubSpot.
• There are over 1,700 HubSpot integrations available.
• 75% of users on HubSpot notice an increase in their company’s generated revenue.
• After six months, HubSpot customers generated 107% more leads.
• They also close 35% more deals.
• After one year, HubSpot customers see 114% more traffic to their website.
• They also secure 55% more deals.
• 43% more tickets are resolved in the first year when customer’s use Hubspot.

Triple Whale:

Triple Whale is known to transform data into growth, saying goodbye to inaccurate, scattered data and giving brands one source of truth for accurate reporting and insight.

Statistics on Triple Whale

• Over 200,000 brands use Triple Whale.
• Aggregated data can be compared across 10,000+ brands in the Triple Whale ecosystem.
• Triple Whale is used in over 50 countries.
• Triple Whale reports that they track over $35 billion in annual revenue.
• $7 billion annual ad spend is tracked via the platform.
• 66% of businesses that use Triple Whale are small businesses earning less than $50m. 7% are medium sized businesses.
• 90 days is the maximum lookback for performance on Triple Whale, however the comparison period goes as far as 180 days.
• Paw.com saw a 14.2% uplift in Klaviyo Flow revenue with Sonar Send.
• HelloBello achieved consistent 11% month on month growth.

E-commerce and attribution

Finding the right customer is the core of any successful e-commerce marketing strategy, and attribution models slot into this by providing actionable insights to refine strategy, enhance reach and heighten impact.

Statistics on attribution in e-commerce:

• With 73% of customers using multiple channels during their shopping journey, attribution models are becoming increasingly important for e-commerce success.
• Utilising a data-driven multi-touch attribution model, Bose saw an 81% increase in e-commerce sales, driving a 35% increase in revenue.
• When adopting a data- driven attribution model, Hello Fresh saw a significant increase in their customer base leading to 10% more conversions and  CPA decreasing 18%. 
• Walks of Italy set up a custom data-driven attribution model to increase revenue by 33%, 31% increase in transactions and boost ROI by 25%. 
• Medpex also saw a 29% increase in conversions and a 28% decrease in CPA using data-driven attribution.

Understanding attribution is essential for marketers looking to maximise their impact and optimise budgets across multiple channels. With customers typically engaging in complex, multi-touch journeys before converting, finding the right attribution model and tool can provide invaluable insights into customer behaviour to tailor strategy effectively.

As demonstrated in this blog, attribution tools streamline data collection and enhance reporting accuracy, which enables marketers to make data-driven decisions. Across various channels, leveraging attribution strategically allows marketing efforts to be measured accurately and optimised for further growth.

Ready to enhance your digital marketing strategy with attribution models? If you are looking for an agency that specialises in innovative solutions to exceed your current performance then contact our team of experts.

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