Beyond Last-Click: Modern Attribution for SEO Success

Last-click attribution, while simple, fails to capture the complex customer journey, often misrepresenting SEO's true value. This outdated model assigns all credit to the final click before conversion, ignoring the crucial role of earlier touchpoints like organic search results, email marketing, and social media interactions. A more sophisticated, full-funnel attribution model offers a far more accurate picture. These models distribute credit across multiple touchpoints, recognizing that SEO's influence often begins much earlier in the process. For example, a user might discover a brand through an organic search result (SEO's contribution), then engage with email marketing, and finally convert on a paid advertisement. Last-click attribution would solely credit the paid ad, while a full-funnel model fairly distributes the credit among all contributors. The benefits are clear: improved understanding of SEO's true impact, better budget allocation across marketing channels, and more data-driven decision-making. The risks of sticking with last-click attribution include inaccurate ROI calculations, underinvestment in high-value, early-stage touchpoints like SEO, and ultimately, suboptimal marketing performance. Different full-funnel models exist, each with its own methodology for assigning credit, such as linear attribution (equal credit to all touchpoints), time-decay attribution (greater credit to more recent interactions), and position-based attribution (credit to first and last clicks). The choice depends on specific business goals and data availability. By transitioning away from last-click attribution, businesses can gain a clearer view of their marketing ROI, optimize their efforts, and improve their overall return on investment.

(Source: https://moz.com/blog/mozcon-2025-last-click-attribution-is-dead)