Why Traditional Attribution Models Mislead Marketers.
It’s time to see what truly drives growth.
Every marketing team — from fast-growing startups to global brands — faces the same question:
Which channels actually drive growth?
Attribution has always promised to answer that, but the truth is most models tell us what happened, not why it happened. They confuse correlation with causation. The result? Misplaced budgets, misleading insights, and endless debates about what’s really working.
-Teams rely on tools that over-credit one touchpoint and overlook others, giving the illusion of precision but failing to reveal what truly moves the needle.
Let’s look at how this plays out across different types of marketing teams — and why causal thinking is the missing piece.
The Startup Struggle: Quick Answers, Wrong Conclusions
Picture a small SaaS startup with one growth manager running ads, emails, and outreach all at once. The pressure is real: prove what works, and fast.
Naturally, they open Google Analytics and check which channel brought the final click before signup. That’s last-click attribution — simple, fast, and… wrong.
It ignores the full customer journey. The Facebook ad that created awareness? The friend’s referral that sparked curiosity? Invisible. All credit goes to the last click — even if that click came from someone already convinced.
The risk? The marketer shifts budget toward what looks “profitable” on paper while cutting off the very channels that create discovery and long-term impact.
The Enterprise Trap: Complex Models, Familiar Mistakes
Now take a large e-commerce company with data scientists, dashboards, and machine learning models. You’d think better data means better attribution. But not always.
Multi-touch attribution, which divides credit among several channels, seems fairer. It uses fancy terms like “Shapley values” to make the math feel scientific. Yet underneath, it still relies on correlations — assuming that if a channel appears in a customer’s path, it contributed equally to conversion.
But what if some channels always overlap? What if timing or audience overlap inflates their credit? The model doesn’t know. It only knows what it can observe, not what truly caused the outcome.
Even with millions of data points, teams can still make wrong decisions — just with more confidence.
The CFO’s Challenge: ROI Without the Full Picture
In established companies, the conversation shifts from traffic to revenue. The CFO wants to know: “For every dollar we spend, how much new revenue are we actually creating?”
That’s where Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) comes in — regression-based models that link ad spend to sales. On paper, it’s elegant. In practice, it’s fragile.
MMM struggles with unseen factors like seasonality, brand awareness, or delayed effects. It can overstate the impact of a channel just because it coincides with peak shopping seasons or promotional periods.
This isn’t just a technical flaw — it’s a business risk. Decisions on million-dollar budgets are made on incomplete truth.
The Missing Link: Causal Thinking
What’s been missing from marketing attribution is causal reasoning.
Instead of asking, “Which channels were present when the sale happened?”, causal analysis asks,
“Would this sale still have happened if that channel hadn’t existed?”
That small shift changes everything. It helps teams see incremental impact — the real lift created by each channel, not just the one that showed up last.
Causal analysis adjusts for overlapping influences (like when two channels target the same audience) and isolates what truly drives conversions. It’s less about assigning credit and more about discovering truth.
When marketers apply causal thinking, they stop chasing numbers and start investing where value is genuinely created.
Why This Matters Now
Digital marketing is getting more complex every year — more channels, more data, more algorithms. Yet the core goal remains the same: understand what actually works.
We believe attribution should do more than report clicks. It should guide smarter decisions, reveal hidden potential, and give leaders the confidence that their budgets are creating real growth — not just measurable activity.
In short:
- Traditional attribution tells us who was involved.
- Causal thinking tells us who made the difference.
About Friday Marketing Agency
Friday Marketing Agency is a full-service creative and digital agency based in Glendale, Beverly Hills, California, working with clients across the world.
Our team brings together strategists, designers, and content creators who help brands grow with clarity and purpose.
We collaborate with businesses across various industries — fitness, beauty, healthcare, real estate, and lifestyle — building strategies that fit each client’s identity and goals.
If you want to explore more marketing insights and thoughtful perspectives, follow us on Medium for upcoming articles from our team.
