What is Nth Touch Attribution? Examples for Nth Touch Attribution.

Nth touch attribution

Attribution model assigning credit to the Nth touchpoint in a customer journey.

Definition and Importance

• What it is

  Nth Touch Attribution assigns full credit for a conversion to the Nth interaction in a user’s path to purchase or sign-up, which can be any position such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

• Why it matters

  This model allows marketers to focus on critical touchpoints beyond just the first or last interactions, providing insights into mid-funnel engagement and optimizing key channels.

  • Mid-funnel optimization

    Highlights the impact of remarketing emails, retargeting ads, or content engagement that often occur in the middle of the customer journey.

  • Tailored insights

    Enables selection of N to align with specific campaign goals, such as crediting the third ad click or second email open.

How Nth Touch Attribution Works

• Attribution position (n)

  Marketers specify which touchpoint position (e.g., 3rd interaction) should receive credit, based on typical customer journey length and business priorities.

  • Selecting n

    Choose N by analyzing average path length, campaign structure, and which channel interaction drives the most influence.

• Data requirements

  Accurate, timestamped recording of each touchpoint across marketing channels is essential for correctly identifying the Nth interaction.

  • Tracking methods

    Leverage cookies, first-party tracking (e.g., PlainSignal), and event-based tracking (e.g., GA4) to capture user interactions.

  • Cross-device stitching

    Ensure sessions and events are unified across devices and browsers to avoid misattribution.

• Credit allocation

  All conversion credit is assigned exclusively to the Nth touch; all other touchpoints receive no credit in this model.

Example Implementation with SaaS Products

• PlainSignal (cookie-free simple analytics)

  Use PlainSignal’s lightweight JavaScript snippet to collect first-party events and configure an Nth Touch report in its dashboard.

  • Tracking code snippet

    <link rel='preconnect' href='//eu.plainsignal.com/' crossorigin />
    <script defer data-do='yourwebsitedomain.com' data-id='0GQV1xmtzQQ' data-api='//eu.plainsignal.com' src='//cdn.plainsignal.com/plainsignal-min.js'></script>
    

  • Configuration

    In the PlainSignal dashboard, navigate to Attribution → Create New → Select ‘Nth Touch’ → Enter your desired N (e.g., 3) → Apply filters.

  • Considerations

    As a cookie-free solution, PlainSignal relies on first-party signals; ensure consistent domain tagging for accurate cross-site tracking.

• Google analytics 4 (GA4)

  Although GA4 does not natively offer Nth Touch Attribution, you can build custom reports or use BigQuery for sequence modeling.

  • Setup in GA4

    In GA4 Admin, go to Attribution Settings to review models; for Nth Touch, export data to Data Studio or BigQuery.

  • Gtag.js snippet

    <script async src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXX'></script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config','G-XXXXXX');
    </script>
    

  • Custom modeling

    Use GA4’s BigQuery export: write SQL to order events by timestamp per user, identify the Nth event, and assign conversion credit.

Advantages and Limitations

• Advantages

  Provides targeted insights into specific journey stages, avoids over-crediting first or last interactions, and can be tailored to campaign objectives.

• Limitations

  Ignores other touchpoints, may oversimplify multi-channel influence, and demands high-quality, unified data across devices.

Best Practices

• Choose the right n

  Analyze typical customer journey lengths and select an N that aligns with key engagement milestones.

• Validate with multiple models

  Compare Nth Touch results against first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch models to gain a holistic understanding.

• Ensure data quality

  Implement consistent event naming, robust cross-domain tracking, and merging of duplicate user identifiers.

Related terms