Which attribution model is the correct one?

None is correct; each model is an assumption about how credit should be divided. The practical approach is to keep one model as the reporting baseline and read the same data through a second model before a decision. A channel whose position changes sharply between the two is the one worth testing.

Attribution Model

Intermediate

Updated Jul 11, 2026 Shahin editorial 2 min read

PronunciationEN/ˌætrɪˈbjuːʃən ˈmɑːdəl/

An attribution model is the rule that decides which touchpoints before a conversion receive credit for it and what share each one gets.

Models fall into two families. Single-touch models hand the whole conversion to one touch, either the first or the last. Multi-touch models split it across several: evenly in linear, weighted towards both ends in position-based, and towards recency in time-decay. Changing the model never changes what happened, only how the same conversions are divided, so a channel that gains thirty percent after a model change has not improved. A model is also unreadable without the two settings attached to it, the lookback window and whether touches are joined by browser cookie or by account.

FAQ

Sources:Google Analytics Help — About attribution and attribution modeling