When measuring the success of your social media campaign, you will need to determine whether to attribute the campaign's success to the social media marketing that resulted in the first click or the one that closed the deal. The first-click vs. last-click attribution model offers different perspectives on the customer’s buying journey. 

While the first click prioritizes the customer's fast touch point, the last click prioritizes the previous interaction. Determining which attribution model to use is essential in the age of dark social. In this article, we will examine these two models and attempt to decide which one will work best for your brand in the era of dark social.

Understanding Attribution Modelling

With attribution modeling, businesses can attribute credit to the various touchpoints of the customer’s buying journey. Then, the process is key to understanding the impact and effectiveness of a digital marketing strategy for lead generation. When you know the customer’s journey from the first touch to the last, you can gain essential insights into their behavior.

Attribution modelling can provide important insights into the contribution of different interactions toward our goal. Through attribution modeling, you can gain essential insights into the effectiveness of your campaign. When doing marketing attribution, you identify and assign values to the different interactions influencing the customer’s conversion decision. The touch points and interactions consist of other stages, such as clicking on a social media ad, signing up for a promotional email, and visiting your site. 

Through attribution, you can evaluate the different steps in an organized manner and gain a holistic view of your various marketing channels. For instance, if a customer clicks on an Instagram ad for the first time but converts after receiving a series of email reminders, you can understand the role played by each touchpoint through attribution modeling. You can then use this level of clarity to fine-tune your strategy based on real data rather than guesswork.

Choosing the Right Attribution Modelling Option

Attribution modelling is key to understanding what works for your marketing, enabling you to assign values to the different touchpoints of the customer's journey that lead to a purchase. Attribution, therefore, affects your priorities, budgets, and even growth. When considering attribution modelling, the first click vs. last click attribution is a great starting point.

It helps you determine whether you are focusing primarily on bringing in new customers or more on converting your current leads. The choice of an attribution model depends on various factors, such as the types of business model, your goals, and the sales cycle. Regardless of the model you choose, you must be confident in the information you are collecting, as a sound attribution system relies on high-quality data.

The first-click model serves as the opener, while the last-click model is the closer. Despite the simplicity offered by these models, each one provides a unique lens, depending on your target measurements. 

Why Attribution Modelling Matters

Attribution modelling plays a crucial role in closing the gap between your marketing efforts and the measurable results. It enables you to see the campaigns that bring more people through the early stages of the buying process (awareness, consideration, and conversion). Through attribution modeling, you can determine which marketing channels are yielding the most results.

You can decide if your paid search ad resulted in interest the first time it was displayed. This can be important in finalizing your sales. Through these insights, you can optimize your budget and allocate more money to the channels that have the most significant impact. 

Then, you can use the insights to optimize your budget, allocate more money to the channels that drive the most traffic, and achieve a bigger impact. You can, therefore, run campaigns that are optimized to reach customers at the stage where they are most active.

Single-Touch vs. Multi-Touch Attribution

These two models simplify the analysis, as they attribute the success of only one of the touchpoints. For instance, the first-click attribution only gives full credit to the initial touchpoint, which can be helpful when searching for an entry point, depending on the brand awareness.

On the other hand, the last-click attribution considers the last interaction, which helps to determine why people are converting. In addition, we have multi-touch attribution models, such as time decay or position-based models, where credit is assigned to the various touchpoints along the customer’s buying journey.

Time decay typically places more emphasis on touchpoints that occur closer to the conversion. This provides a comprehensive picture that enables you to analyze the different stages of the buying process.

Understanding the First-Click Attribution

First-click attribution focuses more on the interactions that drive customers to your brand. In this attribution model, conversions are given credit, with a deep dive into the first touchpoints, such as the first click on a social media ad or the first visit to your website. These attribution models are more suitable for campaigns that focus on building brand awareness, aiming to reach and target new audiences. 

For instance, when you run an ad on social media and a consumer clicks on it, the click is what activates the interest. If the consumer goes ahead and makes a purchase, the first-click attribution provides the first ad with the credit. This attribution method provides insights into how your customers find you. 

With Google indicating that only 4% of customers click on an ad, it can be helpful to identify the keywords and ads that cause clicks. That's why businesses use first-click attribution to determine the first touch that sparked interest. They can then use the information to optimize their ads and campaigns.

Application of First-Click Attribution

The first-click attribution is a good choice for measuring the impact of your marketing campaigns in raising awareness. Due to its simplicity, it's an excellent choice for marketers who need a straightforward way to identify customer entry points and increase brand recognition.

First-click attributes are ideal for brands whose primary goal is brand awareness. This is an excellent choice for models whose goal is to drive new customers and test the success level of top-of-the-funnel strategies. The strategy is beneficial in sectors where impression matters. For instance, tech startups greatly benefit from making a strong initial impression.

Its main drawback is that it ignores everything that happens after the initial interaction, including the steps that helped nurture the lead to the final conversion. Therefore, if you want a long-term strategy, it's essential to combine it with other attribution models.

Understanding the Last-Click Attribution

The last-click attribution gives credit to the last touch point that occurs before a conversion. This could involve clicking “Buy Now” or interacting with a retargeting email. First, consider the method a customer uses to learn about your brand, such as a search engine ad, or they could complete the purchase after clicking on a retargeting email. The last-click attribution will attribute the credit to the previous email.

Last-click attribution is an excellent choice for campaigns that focus on conversions. It helps brands understand the conversion strategies that drive customers to make a purchase. However, brands that focus solely on the last touchpoint overlook the other touchpoints that contributed to the decision.

The last-click attribution model is a good choice for businesses with a short sales cycle resulting in quick conversion. The success of this model occurs when a conversion takes place immediately after the first interaction.

In Conclusion

Attribution models, such as first-click and last-click models, can offer more comprehensive insights into the customer’s buying journey. They provide insights into how different touchpoints are helping to drive conversion to your site. With these models, you can determine where to invest more of your dollars.