Attribution – Source Of Truth

A surprise or maybe just the truth about attribution we’ve been avoiding.

Digital attribution is having its reckoning moment & the platforms are telling us themselves.

Let me walk you through what’s been happening quietly over the last year

This aims to notice the measurement conversation shifting, you might want to pay attention now, yo know 🤭.

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March 2024: modern measurement playbook – Attribution updated from GOOGLE

Google basically admitted attribution has limits Modern Measurement Playbook came out & buried in there was this line that should’ve made every performance marketer pause:

“Attribution provides attributed sales, not incremental, for shorter periods and only for digital scope.”

Read that again: Google the company that built an empire on last- click attribution is now officially & publicly saying attribution shows you just correlation, not causation.

It tells you what happened in the digital. It doesn’t tell you what you actually added or what would’ve happened without your spend .

This means measuring the incrementality is nearly impossible 🤷‍♂️.

Even with billion data point, even with data centre innovation, even with the brilliant data-driven marketing!!!

This is a bit dramatic but technically still true.

Although it may sound scary, I find it feel released.

After all, the giant now admitted the source of truth. The truth anyone has been through this industry long enough may reckon & expect an answer.

To me, this move deserves an applause, because when you are in leader position, saying an apology takes courage.

Reality they do not run away, they face it with a thought & a direction forwards prove strong commitment. I drop another note for this for better.

May 2025: Meta releases updates Attribution

Meta told us to stop trusting single sources of truth (attribution model). However, Meta played a better move.

Meta dropped their Measurement 360 framework.

The whole premise was basically “stop relying only on attribution models because they’re not giving you the full picture.

They’re pushing what they call a “suite of truth” a trio measurement: attribution + MMM + experiments.

Their POV pointed that attribution alone can’t answer the incrementality question anymore, yo know. Think about that for a second!!!!

Meta, whose ads manager has attribution baked into every cross-channel cross-platform, the no1 ROAS-driven offsite, is now telling you that attribution isn’t enough.

That’s not them following but echoing the source of truth realizing trust in digital attribution may be eroding fast.

Silence would be an unwise move & Meta leadership just knew and acted upon.

To me, this move & reco from would be neccessary & relevant. Bravo!!!

2024-2025: TikTok updated & basically said last-click is just unfair for its platform.

TikTok’s been screaming this for a while now. They updated their attribution model in 2024 & then doubled down in 2025 with their attribution portfolio, and their whole message has been:

“traditional attribution, especially last-click, fails to capture TikTok’s full impact on the customer journey.”

Translation: we drive a ton of upper-funnel demand that doesn’t convert immediately

If you’re only looking at last-click attribution, you’re undervaluing us & overvaluing bottom-funnel channels.

That are just harvesting demand we created.

SO WHAT NOW?

💥All of this is really saying:

The 3 platforms themselves: Google, Meta, TikTok are admitting that digital attribution as we’ve known it for the last 15 years may not be as good as we expect, or as per education.

It is not hope, just hype!!!

Not because the math is wrong.

But because it was never designed to answer the question that actually matters

“What did this spend add that wouldn’t have happened without it?”

Attribution shows you patterns.

• It shows you touchpoints.
• It shows you what people clicked before they converted.

But it doesn’t show you incrementality fully or one hundred percent true.

So in a world where budgets are tight & every dollar has to defend itself.

Incrementality is the only question/metric that matters.

(Tommy)

We’re watching the industry slowly, quietly walk back 15 years of “attribution is the answer” messaging & move toward something that looks a lot like the old methodology we used to rely on before digital took over: Marketing Mix Modeling(MMM).

MMM was the old gold standard in traditional media because it could estimate:

• Incremental impact across channels
• A longer-term view of what’s actually driving business results.
• Control for external factors like seasonality & promotions

Then digital came along & attribution became the default.

We are told that it was faster, cheaper, and gave you that satisfying click-path story.

So that all technology made it feel like you could see exactly what was working, yo know.

A hype of data-driven marketing would replace old-gold methodogy, but stil undone.

Because now we’re realizing that satisfying story was incomplete at best and misleading at worst.

So the pendulum is swinging back.

Except this time MMM is being rebuilt for the digital era with better data infrastructure, open-source tools,& integration with real-time experiments.

This is for better usage.

I’m not sharing my full POV here because honestly it might cause more trouble than it’s worth right now.

However, I do think this is the most important industry discussion.

It is important & deserves an attention.

Attribution isn’t going away. It’s being demoted from “source of truth” to “one input among many,” and if you’re still making budget decisions based purely on attribution reports without incrementality validation, you’re about to get left behind.

Like everywhere, what worked yesterday doesn’t work forever!!!

I keep you posted in later articles.

TOMMY 🙏

This is as for informational & educational purpose, No liability for actions taken. Nothing in this article constitutes legal, compliance, or regulatory advice.

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