Last-Click Attribution

What it credits, and what it does not

If a visitor arrives via Google CPC, browses for five minutes and converts, last-click credits the conversion to Google CPC. If a visitor arrives via Facebook, leaves, returns via direct (or via a different source) and converts, last-click credits whichever source was observed on the page where the conversion fired. Earlier touchpoints — the email opened last week, the influencer post seen a month ago — receive no credit.

This is deliberate. Last-click does not measure influence; it measures the source that closed the conversion. For media-mix decisions on a single channel at a time, that is usually the correct question.

Last-click vs multi-touch

Multi-touch attribution distributes credit across the chain of touchpoints — linear, time-decay or data-driven. To work, it requires per-user tracking: linking pageview A and pageview B to the same visitor across sessions. That requirement makes multi-touch unreachable for any architecture that does not track individuals. SealMetrics counts events anonymously in aggregate, so multi-touch is not part of the product.

Last-click on 100% of data

Cookie-based last-click attribution still loses data the moment the cookie disappears. SealMetrics applies last-click at the event level: the channel observed on the page where the conversion fires gets the credit, on 100% of observed conversions. No cookie required, no expiration risk, no “direct” bucket inflated by ITP. See the full pattern in the cookieless analytics pillar.