Last-click Attribution

Last-click attribution gives all the credit for a conversion to the last channel the user entered from before converting; it is the simplest and most widely used attribution model.

Last-click attribution is popular because it is simple and definite: one conversion, one winner, no judgment about the user's complicated journey. But that same simplicity is its bias — the channels that first discover the user (content, social, awareness ads) get no credit, while bottom-of-funnel channels (branded search, reminder email) look larger than their real share. The practical result is that a team shifts budget toward “closing” channels and slowly starves the top-of-funnel engine. So last-click is enough for a business with a short purchase journey, but for a long multi-step journey it should be read beside a multi-touch model, not on its own.