What is Attribution in Digital Advertising — and Why Should Business Owners Care?
Get it wrong, and you're making decisions with the lights off.
If you’re running online ads — whether it’s on Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or anywhere else — attribution is the hidden force telling you what’s really working.
👉 Attribution is the process of identifying which marketing touchpoints (ads, emails, organic search, etc.) lead to a customer action — such as a purchase, lead, or sign-up.
But here’s the catch: different platforms measure attribution differently.
🔹 Facebook Ads often takes credit if someone clicked or even just viewed an ad within 1–7 days of making a purchase — even if they came back later via Google Search.
🔹 Google Ads historically used a last-click model — meaning the final interaction (often branded search) gets full credit, which can undervalue earlier interactions like social or email. Do you know if anyone has updated your account to multi-touch (data-driven) attribution?
Why this matters to you as a business owner:
If you don’t understand how attribution works, you might:
🔹 Pause channels that are actually generating awareness and sales
🔹 Misjudge which ads are working, based on flawed reporting
🔹 Scale ads are that are not working, based on flawed reporting
🔹 Miss out on opportunities to improve your overall digital strategy
✅ Quick Tip: Use tools like Google Analytics 4, UTM tracking, and blended ROAS reporting to get a clearer picture of performance across platforms.
Use a blended approach to get the clearest view of performance:
Set up Google Analytics 4 properly
Implement clear UTM tracking using tools like UTM.io or Campaign URL Builder
Review multi-channel ROAS using reporting tools like SEMrush for SEO + ads, or Supermetrics to pull blended data into your reporting.
Attribution isn’t just another marketing buzzword — it’s how you see your real return on investment (ROI)
Get it wrong, and you're making decisions with the lights off.
Final Thought:
Do you know how your attribution is currently set up by your internal team or agency?
When was the last time anyone really had a look under the hood?
👉 If you’re not sure — I’m happy to take a look and offer a free audit and guidance.
Let’s make sure you're scaling based on reality — not guesswork.
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