When someone converts, more than one channel usually played a part — they might click a paid ad, come back through search, then buy after an email. Attribution is how UMAP360 decides which channels and campaigns get the credit, so you can see what's actually driving revenue and where to put your spend.
How attribution works
As people interact with your business, UMAP360 builds up the path each customer took before they converted — the sequence of touchpoints like a paid ad click, an organic visit, or a referral. When a conversion happens, an attribution model decides how to share the credit across those touchpoints.
You don't have to pick one "right" answer. The Attribution Models dashboard lets you view the same conversions through several models and compare them side by side, so you can see how the story changes depending on which model you trust.
The attribution models
UMAP360 offers four models. Each one credits the touchpoints in a customer's path differently:
| Model | How it gives credit |
|---|---|
| First Touch | 100% of the credit goes to the very first touchpoint — the channel that introduced the customer to you. |
| Last Touch | 100% goes to the last touchpoint before the conversion — what "closed" the sale. |
| Linear | Credit is split equally across every touchpoint in the path. |
| Time Decay | More credit goes to the touchpoints closer to the conversion, less to the earlier ones. |
There's no single correct model — they answer different questions. First Touch tells you what's good at finding new customers; Last Touch tells you what's good at converting them. Comparing them is often more useful than arguing over which is "true."
Start by comparing
Look at the same conversions under First Touch and Last Touch first. If a channel looks strong in one but weak in the other, that's a signal about where in the journey it earns its value — not that it's failing.
How ad clicks get credited to the right source
For paid channels, accurate attribution depends on knowing that a specific ad click belongs to a specific person. When someone clicks a Google Ads or Meta Ads ad, that click is captured and tied back to the customer's profile in UMAP360. This ad-click-to-profile link is what lets the attribution models credit the right campaign and platform for a conversion, instead of lumping paid traffic into a generic bucket.
To make this work, you'll need your ad platform connectors set up. Once they're connected, ad clicks flow in and become part of the customer journeys the models read from.
Connectors power paid attribution
Without your Google Ads and Meta Ads connectors configured, UMAP360 can't tie clicks to profiles — so paid channels won't be credited accurately. See Connect ad platforms to get them linked.
Tuning what counts
The Attribution Models dashboard gives you a few controls to shape what each model measures:
- Lookback windows — Choose how far back UMAP360 looks for touchpoints before a conversion: 7, 30, or 90 days. A shorter window focuses on recent activity; a longer one captures slower journeys.
- Conversion type — Decide what counts as a conversion: an identity conversion (an anonymous visitor becoming a known customer) or an event-based conversion (a specific action like a purchase).
- Attribution paths — See the top routes customers actually take to convert, so you can spot common patterns in the journey.
Where else attribution shows up
The Attribution Models dashboard is the deepest view, but you'll see attribution surfaced across UMAP360:
- User Acquisition highlights your first-touch channel mix — organic, paid, referral, and direct — so you can see where new customers come from at a glance.
- Ad Performance shows campaign-level results with ad clicks linked back to profiles, including a journey view from ad click to conversion.
- Marketing Performance reports recovery revenue attributed to each engagement channel.
For how these fit together, see the dashboards overview.
Next steps
- Connect your ad platforms so paid clicks can be credited accurately
- Dashboards overview — where to find each view
- Analytics and funnels — see where customers drop off on the way to converting
- Core concepts — how visitors get resolved to real customers
Last updated 2026-06-11