Marketing attribution: how to measure ROI across channels

By Reckona AIUpdated 28 July 20268 min read

"Which channel actually drove that sale?" is the question most marketing dashboards can't honestly answer. Attribution is how you answer it — imperfectly, but usefully, if you set it up right.

The common models, explained simply

Model	Credits	Weakness
Last-click	The final touchpoint before conversion	Ignores everything that built awareness earlier — most common and most misleading
First-click	The first touchpoint	Ignores what actually closed the deal
Linear	Equal credit across every touchpoint	Treats a passing glance the same as a decisive click
Position-based	Weights first and last touch more, middle touches less	More realistic, more complex to set up

Why last-click misleads most Indian SMEs

A customer sees a social post, researches on Google, then clicks a retargeting ad and buys. Last-click gives the retargeting ad 100% of the credit and the channels that actually built the intent get zero — which pushes budget toward the wrong channels over time.

A realistic setup without a data team

UTM-tag everything consistently — the free foundation every model needs.
Use position-based attribution in your ad platforms if last-click is the default — most platforms support switching.
Track assisted conversions, not just last-touch — most analytics tools show this if you look.
Ask new customers directly "how did you hear about us?" — a low-tech but genuinely useful data point.

Perfect attribution doesn't exist. The goal isn't a perfect model — it's a good-enough view that stops you from cutting a channel that's quietly doing the awareness work for another channel's last click.

The full build

See our Performance practice and the free Marketing ROI Calculator for a quick first pass on channel profitability.

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