The Programmatic Glossary
A practical glossary designed to help marketers, advertisers and ad-tech professionals understand the terminology that powers programmatic advertising
Measurement & Analytics
Attribution
The process of determining which ads or marketing touchpoints deserve credit for a customer eventually making a purchase or completing a desired action. It answers the question: 'which of our ads actually drove this result?'
HOW IT WORKS
Attribution models track a user's journey across multiple ad exposures before a conversion. Different models assign credit in different ways: last-click gives all credit to the final ad clicked; first-click credits the first touchpoint; linear splits credit equally across all touchpoints; data-driven attribution uses algorithms to assign credit based on actual impact.
EXAMPLE
A customer sees a display ad on Monday, clicks a search ad on Wednesday, then completes a purchase on Friday. Under last-click attribution, only the search ad gets credit. Under linear attribution, both ads share the credit equally.
RELATED TERMS
Click-through rate (CTR) | Impression | First-party data
