Website Traffic Attribution Explained (Without the Jargon)
Website traffic attribution is how you decide which marketing touchpoints get credit for a sale. Almost nobody buys on the first visit, so one purchase has to be split across several moments — an ad, a search, an email. Attribution is simply the rule you choose for splitting it.
Read next: where your customers come from · why marketing ROI is hard to measure · try Metriko free
Why it exists
A typical path: someone sees an Instagram post, forgets you, searches your name two weeks later, reads an article, leaves, clicks a retargeting ad, buys. Four touchpoints, one sale. Without a rule, every channel claims the same sale and your reports add up to more revenue than you made.
The models, in one line each
- Last click — all credit to the final touch. Simple, and it flatters retargeting and branded search.
- First click — all credit to the discovery touch. Flatters awareness channels.
- Linear — credit split evenly. Fair, not very informative.
- Data-driven — GA4 estimates credit from real paths. The best default if you have enough conversions.
None of them is "true". Pick one, keep it, and compare periods against itself. Switching models mid-quarter is how teams convince themselves a channel collapsed.
Why source traffic attribution breaks
Three usual suspects: untagged links (they land in "direct"), consent banners (refused tracking means invisible visits), and cross-device journeys (phone research, desktop purchase). Expect a gap between analytics revenue and your real sales — 10-25% is normal. Use attribution for direction, not accounting.
A realistic setup for a small team
Tag every link you control with UTMs, define one primary conversion, keep the data-driven model, and check channel revenue monthly rather than daily. That covers most of the value.
Or read it in plain words with Metriko
Attribution reports are the hardest part of analytics to interpret, because the answer is always "it depends on the model". Metriko reads your GA4 data and writes what happened in plain text: which channels actually moved, which ones only look good because of last-click, and where the money came from this month compared to last.
It takes about a minute to connect, changes nothing in your setup, and replaces the dashboard-staring part of the job with something you read like a short note.
Keep reading: where your customers come from, why marketing ROI is hard to measure, how to read Google Analytics.