Multi-touch attribution vs last click

• Last click: all the credit goes to the last thing the shopper clicked before buying. Everything earlier is ignored.
• Multi-touch: the credit is shared across each visit before the sale, from the first ad to the final click.

Take a common path. A shopper finds you through a TikTok video. A week later they see a Meta ad and visit again. Then they search your store's name on Google and buy.

With last click, Google gets all the credit. TikTok and Meta get nothing, even though they found the shopper and brought them back.

• Ads that find new shoppers look weak. Meta and TikTok ads often start the path, but rarely get the final click.
• Brand search and Direct look strong. They often just close a sale another channel started.
• You may cut the wrong ad. Turn off the ads that look weak, and fewer new shoppers arrive in the weeks after.

Multi-touch isn't perfect either. A tool can only share credit across the visits it saw. Visits from messaging apps, or from shoppers who block tracking, can go missing. That is why it helps to check the total against your real orders.

Zyro's Revenue by channel shares credit across the visits before each sale, on every plan. It shows that next to the last-click answer, so you can see both.

A strip checks the total against your store's real orders. Sales with no visit history sit in a "Not tracked" row. Zyro does not guess where they came from.

Visits from AI assistants, such as ChatGPT or Perplexity, show as their own source.

What is the difference between last click and multi-touch?

Last click gives all the credit to the final click before a purchase. Multi-touch shares the credit across every visit, so the ads that found the shopper count too.

Why does last click undercount Meta and TikTok?

These ads often bring a shopper in early. The shopper comes back later through Google or by typing your address, and last click gives that final step all the credit.

Is multi-touch always right?

No. It can only share credit across visits a tool saw. Compare its total with your store's real orders to see how much it missed.

More words like these are in the glossary, and the ROAS guide covers what your ads really return.