Marketing Attribution 
In the world of digital marketing, understanding marketing attribution is crucial. It helps businesses figure out what’s causing people to buy their products or services. One of the ways to do this is by using the linear attribution model.
This guide will explain why the linear attribution model is important and how it works, including how to calculate the credit when we should use it, and provide some examples. Let’s get started!
💡 Key Takeaways
- In linear attribution model, every touchpoint receives the percentage of conversion credit.
- Linear attribution model helps marketers evaluate the full customer journey, preventing middle-funnel engagement channels from being overlooked.
- Linear attribution model is ideal for brands relying on multiple marketing and paid advertising channels for traffic and sales.
- NestAds Marketing Attribution can help you customize your attribution models, including linear attribution, that fits your business goals.
What is a linear attribution model?
Linear attribution model gives credit to multiple touchpoints evenly in the customer journey. Instead of focusing on just one moment in the sales process, it recognizes that every step along the customer journey contributes to the final decision.
This is what sets it from first-click or last-click attribution, which gives 100% of the credit to only one interaction. By giving every channel its credit, the linear model provides a quick, clear look at how your overall marketing ecosystem works together.
Here is a quick example of how linear attribution works:
How does the linear attribution model calculate credit?
In a linear attribution model, each touchpoint is given equal credit in order to measure this, we use a straightforward formula:
Here, 100 (% of The Overall Credit) represents the total credit that we’re distributing among all the touchpoints, and ‘Number of Touchpoints in Conversion patch’ tells us how many steps or interactions occurred in the customer journey. This formula simply divides the total credit (100%) equally among all the touchpoints in the conversion path.
So, if a customer goes through, let’s say, 4 interactions before making a purchase, each of those 4 interactions would receive an equal share of 25% of the overall credit.
Pros and Cons of the linear attribution model
The linear attribution model offers several key advantages compared with other multi-touch models that you need to notice.
| Pros | Cons |
| Comprehensive understanding The linear attribution model provides a full view of the customer journey by equally crediting each touchpoint, showing how all interactions contribute to your business’s success. | Simplicity conundrum While straightforward, this lack of depth can result in basic and potentially inaccurate attribution of success, as it doesn’t explore other attribution methods. |
| User-friendly and accessible Unlike more complex models that require advanced data skills, it equally credits each touchpoint—such as a Google ad, website visit, newsletter signup, or email—making it accessible for marketers of all levels | Equal weights, unequal impact The linear model gives equal credit to all customer interactions. This approach can misallocate marketing resources, as some touchpoints may have a greater impact on the final decision. |
| No need for data science expertise This model is simple and doesn’t need advanced data science skills, allowing you to apply it without the need for complex data analysis or a team of data scientists. | Difficulty tracking across channels The linear model may have difficulty tracking across multiple platforms, leading to gaps in understanding the customer’s journey. This can affect the accuracy of your results and make it harder to optimize your marketing efforts. |
| Effective budget allocation The linear attribution model helps you allocate your marketing budget more effectively, ensuring a balanced strategy that addresses every stage of the customer journey. |
When should we use the linear attribution model?
The linear attribution model isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but it shines in specific scenarios where you need a complete, balanced view of your customer journey:
Best Use Cases
- Relies on multiple marketing channels: Ideal for businesses where customers interact with your brand multiple times across platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and email marketing.
- Focus on funnel optimization: Useful when you view brand awareness, engagement, and direct conversions as equally valuable steps in driving sales.
Alternative Models to Consider
- First-Click or Last-Click (Single-Touch): Use when your strategy focuses strictly on brand discovery or immediate conversions.
- Time-Decay (Weighted): Use when you want to reward specific steps more heavily, such as the initial lead generation or interactions right before the purchase.
- Custom attribution models: Tailor your approach by setting individual touchpoint weights aligned with your business objectives and resource allocation preferences
Continuously analyzing your attribution data and adjusting your strategy based on performance ensures you choose the model that best matches your evolving business goals.
How to set up linear attribution model for Shopify
A linear attribution model assigns equal credit to every touchpoint in a customer’s journey, providing a more balanced view of how each interaction contributes to a conversion. This guide will walk you through the steps to set up a linear attribution model effectively.
Step 1: Collect data
Start by identifying where your customer interaction data is coming from whether it’s through advertising channels like Facebook Ads or TikTok Ads, or via your email campaigns. Then, make sure you have a way to bring all that data together in one place for easy tracking and monitoring. This is where UTM parameters and an attribution tracking tool that fits your needs come in handy. For Shopify merchants who want to create their own linear attribution reports, we suggest using third-party apps like NestAds.
NestAds offers powerful tools to track and optimize your advertising campaigns, scale up ads and maximize ROAS. With NestAds, you can seamlessly gather accurate first-party data directly from your store and centralize it on a single dashboard for easy monitoring. You can even customize the data to suit your needs. Having NestAds installed will make the following steps in this guide much smoother
Step 2: Map the customer journey
Think about how customers interact with your business, from first hearing about you to making a purchase. Start by listing all possible touchpoints, like social media ads, emails, or Google searches. Create a visual map to see how these touchpoints connect.
Then, look at the common paths customers take like seeing an ad, visiting your website, and then returning after an email. Use funnel analysis tools to spot patterns and understand where customers might drop off. This will help you fine-tune your marketing strategy and improve conversions.
Step 3: Assign attribution
After understanding your needs, you can choose an attribution model that you think best suits your business. In this case, your choice is the linear attribution model. Choosing a marketing attribution tool will help you understand the performance of each touchpoint without needing to calculate the credit manually.
By leveraging the linear attribution model, you can make informed decisions about optimizing your marketing strategy based on a comprehensive understanding of each touchpoint’s impact.
Customize your attribution model with NestAds
Remember that the linear Attribution Model is just a single piece of the attribution puzzle. While it serves as a good starting point, especially for those new to multi-touch attribution, it might not fit your business perfectly. So, here’s the tip:
Don’t hesitate to explore different attribution models to discover which one aligns best with your business needs. There’s a variety of models available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
It’s your journey towards gaining a better understanding and enhancing your marketing efforts, and trying out multiple models could be the key to unlocking your business’s success!
FAQs: Linear Attribution Model
Linear attribution is a multi-touch framework that divides conversion credit equally among all interactions along a customer’s journey, treating every engagement step as equally important.
Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) relies on user-level digital tracking to assign credit to specific individual touchpoints, whereas Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) uses aggregate, statistical macro-level data to measure the broader impact of online and offline channels.
No single attribution model is universally superior; the best choice depends on your specific business goals, sales cycle complexity, and technical capabilities. Simple models like last-touch work well for short digital funnels, while data-driven or multi-touch models excel for complex buyer journeys, often leading brands to combine approaches for maximum clarity.
Linear attribution spreads 100% of the conversion credit evenly across every touchpoint a customer interacts with, whereas last-touch attribution assigns 100% of the credit solely to the final interaction before purchase.
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