Attribution Models
Customers rarely buy from a single ad. They might click a Facebook ad on Monday, a Google ad on Thursday, and finally subscribe next week. An attribution model is the rule that decides who gets the credit for that sale.
Signal Sparrow gives you six models. You pick one in Settings → Attribution, and it applies across your whole account.
The six models
| Model | Who gets the credit | Best for understanding… |
|---|---|---|
| First-click | 100% to the first touch | What creates awareness and brings new people in |
| Last-click | 100% to the last touch before paying | What closes the deal |
| Last non-direct click | 100% to the last touch, but skips "direct" visits | Closing credit, without letting "typed your URL" steal it |
| Linear | Split evenly across every touch | Giving every step a fair, equal share |
| Time-decay | More to recent touches, less to older ones | Journeys where the latest nudges matter most |
| U-shaped | Most to the first and last, less to the middle | Valuing both discovery and closing |
Single-touch vs multi-touch
- First-click and last-click are single-touch: one ad gets all the credit. Simple and easy to reason about.
- The other four are multi-touch: credit is shared across the journey, giving a fuller picture when customers see several ads before buying.
Start with Last non-direct click — it's a sensible, widely used default that credits the real marketing touch that led to the sale. As you grow, try a multi-touch model like Time-decay to see how earlier ads contributed.
About Time-decay
Time-decay gives more weight to touches closer to the purchase. How quickly older touches fade is controlled by a half-life setting (in days) — a shorter half-life favors recent touches more strongly. You can adjust it in Settings → Attribution.
Changing your model
When you switch models, Signal Sparrow recalculates your past attribution so everything stays consistent — you're not just changing new data, you're re-scoring history too. This can take a little while on large accounts, and your numbers will settle once it finishes.
Signal Sparrow can show a preview of how a different model or setting would change your numbers before you save it, so there are no surprises.
Next
- Lookback Windows — how far back Signal Sparrow looks for touches
- Reconciliation & Match Rate