Marketing Attribution is a principle in marketing that helps businesses understand the impact of their advertising[3] efforts. It’s based on a psychological theory and has evolved significantly with the rise of digital advertising. Using data from digital channels like search, display, and email marketing[1], it quantifies the influence of each ad impression on consumer[4] decisions. This aids in optimizing media spend for conversions, comparing different marketing channels, and understanding conversion paths across the marketing mix[2]. Various attribution models have been developed due to digital growth, including single source, fractional, and algorithmic models. These models help in planning future ad campaigns, analyzing past performance, and making data-driven decisions. However, they also face challenges such as accuracy and changes in data privacy[5] laws.
At marketing, attribution, also known as multi-touch attribution, is the identification of a set of user actions ("events" or "touchpoints") that contribute to a desired outcome, and then the assignment of a value to each of these events. Marketing attribution provides a level of understanding of what combination of events in what particular order influence individuals to engage in a desired behavior, typically referred to as a conversion.