LastTouch

Last touch attribution, or last-touch attribution, is a marketing attribution model that assigns all credit for a conversion to the final interaction a customer had with a brand before converting. A conversion can be a purchase, signup, or other predefined goal. The touchpoint counted as the last interaction can be any channel or engagement, such as an advertisement, email, search result, social post, or direct visit.

In a last touch model, the channel that immediately precedes the conversion is credited with the entire value of the conversion, while earlier touches receive no credit. This makes the model straightforward to implement and easy to interpret, but it assumes that only the final touch influenced the outcome.

Last touch is one of several attribution models used in marketing analytics. It is often contrasted with first touch, linear, time-decay, and data-driven models, and some platforms refer to it as last-click or last interaction attribution. In practice, many analytics tools offer options to apply 'last non-direct' variants, where direct visits are treated as not contributing unless there are no other interactions.

Strengths of last touch include simplicity, clarity for optimizing the final engagement and informing retargeting strategies. Its limitations include disregarding earlier interactions that influenced awareness and consideration, potential bias toward channels that frequently appear at the end of the path, and a risk of misrepresenting the overall impact of marketing efforts in multi-channel campaigns.

Usage and context: last touch is commonly used as a baseline or benchmark in marketing attribution discussions and can be combined with other models for comparison. It is supported by many digital analytics and advertising platforms as a straightforward way to measure the effectiveness of the final customer interaction. See also marketing attribution, multi-touch attribution, first touch attribution, linear attribution, time decay attribution, data-driven attribution.