Now you know about last touch attribution, let’s talk about first touch. This is fairly straightforward now that you’ve got last touch under your belt.

First touch attribution associates all the value of a conversion event with the first touch in a customer’s journey. When calculating ROI of marketing investments, all other channels in a customer’s journey are ignored in first touch attribution. A first touch is often a channel that “introduces” a customer to a particular brand.

Using the same over-simplified example, this customer’s journey starts with a touch from display. If a company determined the ROI based on first touch, the conversion event would be measured against display, and display only, in this example. If the cost of that display investment was $10 and the conversion event was valued at $100, we’ve got an ROI of 10 to 1.

For the same reason as last touch attribution – first touch is problematic. It devalues other touchpoints related to a customer journey, which are all important in some capacity to driving the eventual conversion.

So why do marketer’s use first touch? Well, like last touch – it’s easy. Doesn’t mean it’s right. Nor is is completely wrong. Just…inaccurate.