> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sourcemedium.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What is Last Click Attribution?

> Understanding last click attribution in SourceMedium and how UTM tracking determines which marketing channel gets credit for a conversion

Attribution is a method used in digital marketing to identify how much each marketing channel has contributed to your sales efforts. Where did your customer come from and what caused them to make a purchase? Last Click Attribution is a model of assigning credit to a conversion based on the last touchpoint a customer has with a website before making a purchase.

In SourceMedium, last click attribution is based on your UTM configuration. Properly set up UTMs allow you to see where your customers are coming from right before they make their purchase.

For UTM field definitions and naming examples, see [UTM Setup](/help-center/core-concepts/attribution/utm-setup).

## Example

If a customer clicks on a Facebook ad and then a few days later visits the site through a Google Search right before then making a purchase, the attribution to the purchase will go to Google (the last click).

## Advantages and disadvantages

### Advantages

* **Factual and Not Opinionated**
  * What UTMs track and say actually happened. They are not influenced by attribution models and cannot have conflicting views (like algorithmic attribution)
* **Simplicity**
  * It's easy to implement and understand last click attribution through properly set up UTMs

### Disadvantages

* **It does not take into account other touchpoints that may have influenced a customer's decision to make a purchase**
* **There are ways to 'break' the model**
  * Checkouts can break UTMs
  * Customer can refresh or leave a page and then come back and make the purchase
  * Ad blockers can break UTMs

## Why do we focus on Last Click Attribution?

There can be a lot of steps in the customer's journey before making a purchase. While we do already report on platform-reported conversions, it is really valuable to have a fact-check of last click to pair what actually happened right before the purchase occurred.

In addition, we stitch GA data with Shopify data to get the best UTM coverage and then we enrich our attribution capabilities with zero-party data (post-purchase surveys) and platform-reported windows to get a full picture. Knowing what happened right before a customer made a purchase can lead to valuable and interesting insights as to a customer's behaviors right before purchasing.

## Questions last-click attribution can answer

* **Do customers consistently come from a social media platform right before purchasing?**
* **Do customers consistently come through a search of your company right before purchasing?**
* **Do customers consistently come through a specific landing page right before purchasing?**
* **Do customers consistently come through an email/SMS right before purchasing?**

Last click attribution has the least likelihood of breaking compared to the other stages of tracking. When combined with information like a post-purchase survey, last click attribution can help you understand a customer's journey of where they found your company and what marketing channels they were influenced by.

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