Definition:

The process of assigning credit for a conversion or sale to a specific marketing channel or touchpoint

Example:

Let’s say a customer first learns about a product through a Google search ad, then visits the product page from an email campaign, and finally makes a purchase after clicking on a Facebook ad. In this case, attribution is the process of assigning credit for the sale to the marketing channel or touchpoint that played the most significant role in the customer’s decision to make the purchase.

Depending on the attribution model used, the credit for the sale may be assigned to the first touchpoint (Google search ad), the last touchpoint (Facebook ad), or a combination of touchpoints along the customer journey. For instance, if a linear attribution model is used, the credit for the sale would be distributed equally across all three touchpoints (Google search ad, email campaign, and Facebook ad), while if a time decay model is used, more weight would be given to the touchpoints that occurred closer to the time of purchase