Glossary: First-touch Attribution
First-touch attribution credits a conversion to the earliest eligible recorded touchpoint, helping teams study discovery while accounting for identity gaps and attribution windows.
What is first-touch attribution?
First-touch attribution assigns credit for a conversion to the earliest eligible marketing or product touchpoint recorded for the user or wallet. It is useful for studying discovery: which campaign, referral, content, or channel first brought an audience into view?
How it works
Choose the conversion event, identity unit, eligible touchpoints, and lookback window. The model then selects the earliest qualifying touch before that conversion. In Web3, a first-party web session may need to be linked to a later wallet connection or transaction; that link can be incomplete, so report coverage and matching rules.
Example
A visitor arrives from a creator campaign, returns through organic search, connects a wallet, and completes a swap. If all visits can be joined to the same user journey and fall inside the selected window, first-touch credits the creator campaign.
What it is useful for
Use first touch to compare discovery sources and understand which channels introduce users who later activate or transact. Pair it with last-touch and multi-touch views, conversion rate, and cohort retention to see whether a channel brings durable users as well as initial visits.
Limitations and common mistakes
First touch is a crediting convention, not proof that the first channel caused the conversion. Cookie loss, multiple devices, wallet changes, privacy restrictions, and missing UTMs can hide earlier touches. Define whether direct visits overwrite or preserve a prior source, and keep the attribution window consistent when comparing campaigns.
Related reading
Explore Last-touch Attribution, Attribution Model, Attribution Window, and onchain attribution.
FAQs
What does first-touch attribution answer?
It shows which observed source introduced a user or wallet to the product, subject to the available identity and campaign data.
Does first touch prove a channel caused conversion?
No. It assigns credit according to a chosen rule; it does not establish causation.
How is it different from last touch?
First touch credits the earliest eligible touchpoint; last touch credits the latest eligible touchpoint before conversion.
Related Terms
A/B Testing
An experiment that compares two versions of a page, feature, or campaign to see which performs better.
Account Abstraction
Account abstraction is an approach that turns blockchain accounts into programmable smart contract wallets, enabling features like gasless transactions, social recovery, session keys, and paying fees in any token.
Activation Rate
Activation rate is the percentage of new users or wallets that complete a key activation milestone, such as a first transaction, out of all users who signed up or connected within a given period.
Active Users
Active users are distinct users, accounts, visitors, wallets, or wallet clusters that complete a defined meaningful action during a specified period; the chosen identity unit and activity rule determine the result.
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