Using Last Click and seeing 80% of your conversions go to “direct”? Welcome to the club.
On a B2B project, we saw attribution tied to lead qualification. But between sign-up and qualification, users went through 2–3 extra touchpoints: emails, retargeting, direct visits. Since attribution was set to the last click before qualification, direct traffic looked like the hero, while real acquisition sources were ignored.
We changed the logic: looked at the last click before registration. That immediately highlighted what actually drives sign-ups. Then we asked users during qualification how they first heard about us — and got the second half of the story: where demand was born. Two simple moves, much clearer funnel.
Last Click = the last click. But the last before what? A purchase? A sign-up? Add to cart? Without a clear anchor event, it’s just noise.
It’s the default in most analytics tools. It feels simple. But “simple” often means “lazy.” Your funnel isn’t like everyone else’s.
Last Click helps when you want a quick view of what closed the deal. But not why the deal happened.
It’s like giving the Oscar to the lead actor and forgetting the rest of the crew.
If you’re using Last Click — fine. Just ask yourself:
• What’s the key event?
• What’s the attribution window?
• How do you treat “direct” and “organic”?
• Are you deduplicating users post-sign-up?
Answer those — and your Last Click will stop being blind.
Attribution isn’t magic. It’s a model. And models should be questioned.
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