An attribution model is a practice that aids in determining how many sales you’ve generated through each channel like your website, emails, social media ads, etc. It is all about giving the conversion credit to the channels that helped with sales generation. Here are some attribution models:
Last interaction model: The last channel through which customers made a purchase receives 100% of the conversion credit.
Last Google Ads click model: The last ad that encouraged customers to buy receives 100% of the conversion credit.
First interaction model: It is the opposite of the last interaction model. It gives 100% conversion credit to the first channel through which customers made a purchase.
Linear model: Every channel with which customers interacted before buying gets the conversion credit equally.
Time decay model: This model gives more credit to the latest traffic sources or ad interactions that happened closer in time to the conversion. Generally, a 7-day half-life cycle is considered while distributing the conversion credit. For example, an ad interaction 8 days before a conversion (exceeds the 7-day half-life cycle) gets half as much credit (50%) as an ad interaction 1 day before a conversion.
Position-based model: This model divides 80% of the conversion credit between the first and last interaction channels. The remaining 20% goes to those interaction channels that fell between the first and last interaction channels.