When attribution is worth the effort

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. Attribution is not free, and pretending otherwise leads to bad decisions.

Data you do not trust is worse than no data, because it gets quoted anyway. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

When it is worth it

Last-click attribution overvalues the final touch. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

When it is not

If nothing downstream depends on it and nobody is complaining, it can wait. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not.

How to decide

Use it to allocate budget, not to settle arguments. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

How to tell if yours is fine

Measurement is only useful when someone has agreed in advance what they would do differently. Three things worth confirming about attribution before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Use it to allocate budget, not to settle arguments — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.