You’ve undoubtedly encountered this well-known conundrum if you’ve been running affiliate programs for a while: an affiliate brought a customer to your website, but someone else made the purchase. Who is deserving of the commission?
The answer has been straightforward—possibly overly straightforward—in conventional affiliate marketing: the final click wins. This implies that full credit goes to the affiliate who generated the last traffic prior to the purchase. Although this model is simple to monitor, it ignores a great deal of important information (and equity).
Put in: A more comprehensive and precise method of monitoring how consumers engage with your marketing campaigns prior to making a purchase is Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA).
Let’s define MTA, discuss its importance in affiliate marketing, and show you how to get past last-click attribution without going crazy.
What Is Multi-Touch Attribution?
Crediting several marketing touchpoints that lead to a single conversion is known as multi-touch attribution. When it comes to affiliate marketing, it means realizing that a buyer may be influenced by multiple affiliates or even non-affiliate channels during their journey.
MTA considers every interaction a user had prior to making a purchase, including clicks, visits, time spent, and source types, and gives partial credit in accordance with those interactions rather than giving the last-click referrer a 100% commission.
Consider a customer who:
Visits a blog that reviews products (Affiliate A),
views an unboxing video on YouTube (Affiliate B),
notices a retargeting advertisement,
clicks on a coupon website (Affiliate C) and ultimately purchases.
Only Affiliate C receives a commission when last-click attribution is used. However, depending on their part in the process, each of the three affiliates can receive a portion of the credit when using multi-touch.
Why Last-Click Attribution Falls Short
The simplicity of last-click attribution has a price. Here’s why it’s going out of style in the affiliate industry:
1. Closers, Not Creators, Are Rewarded
The final click may close the deal, but what about the affiliate who initially generated interest? Influencers, review bloggers, and comparison websites frequently put in the most effort early in the funnel, only to be excluded from the rewards.
2. It Promotes Sniping Coupons
Even when they didn’t actually affect the buyer’s choice, some affiliates take advantage of last-click systems by using “deal” pages, popups, or extensions to obtain the final click.
3. Program Data Is Skewed
You’re probably underinvesting in the top-of-funnel affiliates who generate awareness and trust if you’re only rewarding the final click. This may skew your perception of what your program is actually doing well.
Multi-Touch Attribution’s Advantages for Affiliate Marketing
There are several benefits to switching to MTA for both your partners and affiliate managers.
✅ More Equitable Remuneration
Even if they don’t generate the last click, top-of-funnel affiliates are credited for their conpunishment. This promotes a wider variety of partners to market your products.
✅ Improved Optimization
You can make more intelligent investments if you comprehend each stage of the buyer journey. You can adjust commissions or bonuses based on your knowledge of which affiliates help, which educate, and which convert.
Enhanced Transparency & Trust
Affiliates will value the equity of a model that does not penalize them for not being the final click. This helps attract quality partners and fosters enduring loyalty.
Common Multi-Touch Attribution Models (And How They Work)
The MTA model is not universally applicable. You can use different frameworks based on your tech stack and goals. These are the most typical ones:
1. Attribution that is linear
Every touchpoint is equally credited. Each of the three affiliates who influenced the sale receives 33.3%.
Simple
Could undervalue top converters or closers
2. Attribution of Time Decay
The touchpoint gets more credit the closer it is to the conversion.
A healthy mix of early and late influencers Favoring closers is still possible.
3.Position-Based U-Shaped Attribution
The majority of the credit is given to the first and last clicks (for example, 40% each), with the remaining portion going to middle interactions.
Draws attention to the opening and closing might ignore the influence of the middle funnel
4. Particular Weighting Models
Some sophisticated programs assign weights based on affiliate tier, engagement depth, or historical data using machine learning or custom logic.
The most accurate requires sophisticated analytics and tools.
Tools That Enable Multi-Touch Attribution
You’ll need the appropriate technology to incorporate MTA into your affiliate program. Multi-touch models are now supported by some affiliate networks and tracking systems by default.
A few resources that facilitate advanced attribution are as follows:
Impact.com: Provides custom models and flexible rule-based attribution.
PartnerStack: Excellent for tracking B2B SaaS affiliates with MTA features.
Everflow: Enables deep tracking integrations and hybrid attribution models.
For SaaS companies with several stages in their funnel, FirstPromoter is perfect.
In order to create unique attribution pipelines with events and UTM tracking, you can also incorporate affiliate data with Google Analytics 4, HubSpot, or Segment.
How to Transition from Last-Click to Multi-Touch
Here is a straightforward road map to help you advance your affiliate attribution model:
Examine Your Funnel
Determine the points in the customer journey—discovery, comparison, decision, etc.—where affiliates are having an impact.
Speak with Your Affiliates
Inform them that you are looking into a more equitable model. Transparency increases promotion and fosters trust.
Begin Little
To collect data, test a multi-touch model with a small number of campaigns or high-volume affiliates.
Modify the Commission Structures
Bonus tiers, payout assistance, and commission splitting may initially require manual labor.
Utilize Data to Repeat
As you gather information, improve your model. Since perfect attribution is a process rather than a final goal, it’s acceptable to make adjustments over time.
Conclusion: MTA Is More Than Just a Technological Advancement—It’s a change in mindset
It takes more than just technology to move past last-click attribution; it also requires a shift in how we value affiliate contributions. Rewarding just the last click is antiquated, unjust, and ineffective in a world where consumers research across dozens of touchpoints before converting.
Multi-touch attribution helps you make better decisions for your brand by giving your affiliates a more welcoming and inspiring environment.
It is now essential to comprehend the entire process, whether you are scaling a performance-based marketing channel or overseeing an expanding affiliate program. It is affiliate marketing’s future.
Do you need assistance setting up multi-touch attribution in your affiliate program?
Ask questions in the comments section or get in touch with me directly to discuss technology, strategy, and structure.
