J-shaped attribution model explained

What is the j-shaped attribution model?

The j-shaped attribution model gives most credit to the converting touchpoint while still rewarding the first touch and spreading a small share across the middle. If you want a model that captures discovery, values the closing influence, and reflects a realistic conversion path, the j-shaped attribution model is a practical, decision-ready option.

Definition and weighting (20/60/20)

The j-shaped attribution model assigns 20 percent of credit to first touch, 60 percent to the last touch that triggers the conversion, and spreads the remaining 20 percent across all other touches in the path. It is a position-based approach optimized for multi-touch attribution where closing influence matters most.

In practice, this weighting answers two things at once:

• Who introduced the buyer to the brand first
• Which interaction pushed the buyer over the line to convert

Because it prioritizes the last touch, it tends to favor lower-funnel channels like branded search and retargeting, while still recognizing top-of-funnel discovery.

Why the shape matters for decision making

Attribution models are decision models. The j-shaped attribution model tilts decisions toward tactics that close deals without ignoring discovery. That has real budget implications for paid media, content, and CRO.

For example, if you see that last touch has 60 percent of revenue attribution on average, you can increase investment in conversion-focused keywords or landing pages. At the same time, seeing persistent 20 percent allocation to first touch keeps you from starving awareness.

Compared with purely last touch, this model reduces “short-termism.” Compared with pure first touch, it reduces “awareness bias.” It’s a balanced option for teams that want growth now and tomorrow.

J-shaped

This model attributes 20 percent of the credit to the first interaction, and 60 percent to the conversion. The remaining 20 percent is spread across other interactions in the conversion path. Choose this model if you want to give credit to both the first interaction and converting interaction, but with more weight on the conversion.

How j-shaped assigns credit (example walkthrough)

Here is how the j-shaped attribution model works on a real conversion path. We will use a multi-touch example with a standard lookback window and then show the quick math you can apply in your reports or spreadsheets.

Example: multi-touch conversion with numbers

Assume a buyer’s convert path includes five touches within your 90-day lookback window:

1. First touch: LinkedIn ad click
2. Second touch: Organic blog visit
3. Third touch: Email nurture click
4. Fourth touch: Direct homepage visit
5. Last touch: Branded search ad click leading to purchase

Order value: €2,000. We apply the j-shaped attribution model with 20/60/20.

• First touch gets 20 percent: €400 to the LinkedIn campaign
• Last touch gets 60 percent: €1,200 to the branded search ad
• Middle touches share 20 percent equally: €400 / 3 = ~€133.33 each

So the final revenue attribution:

• LinkedIn first touch: €400
• Organic blog: €133.33
• Email nurture: €133.33
• Direct visit: €133.33
• Branded search last touch: €1,200

This simple split respects the reality that the last touch often carries the biggest closing influence while still rewarding the origin of the journey and the assist touches that nudged the buyer forward.

Quick calculation formula

Use this quick formula to apply the j-shaped attribution model in a sheet:

• Let R = revenue for the conversion (or value for the goal).
• Let N = number of touchpoints within the lookback window.
• First touch credit = 0.20 × R.
• Last touch credit = 0.60 × R.
• Middle share pool = 0.20 × R, divided by (N − 2) middle touches.

Edge cases to handle fast:

• If there is only one touch, it receives 100 percent.
• If there are two touches, first touch = 20 percent, last touch = 80 percent.
• If middle touches include duplicates from the same channel, you can group by channel after allocating per touch.

J-shaped vs inverse j-shaped

Both models are position-based and useful for multi-touch attribution. The j-shaped attribution model favors the last touch. The inverse j-shaped does the opposite, favoring the first touch. Your choice should align with whether discovery or closing impact is more critical for your decisions right now.

Inverse j-shaped explained (60/20/20)

Inverse j-shaped attributes 60 percent of credit to first touch, 20 percent to the converting touch, and spreads the remaining 20 percent across middle interactions. It is ideal when discovery is expensive, long-term, and strategically vital to growth, such as brand building or category creation.

This model highlights channels that start journeys, like top-of-funnel paid social, PR, or influencers. It still respects the closing moment but keeps your focus on fueling pipeline creation.

Side-by-side example: same path under both models

Using the same five-touch convert path and €2,000 revenue:

• J-shaped result:
  • First touch: €400
  • Middle touches: €133.33 each
  • Last touch: €1,200
• Inverse j-shaped result:
  • First touch: €1,200
  • Middle touches: €133.33 each
  • Last touch: €400

Notice how the same data points to different budget decisions. Under j-shaped, you’d scale last touch bidding or landing page CRO. Under inverse, you’d protect and expand upper-funnel reach.

How to choose between them

Use this 60-second checklist:

• If you need to hit targets this quarter, use the j-shaped attribution model to reward closers.
• If you are building a new market or brand, use inverse j-shaped to reward starters.
• If your path is short and branded search dominates, j-shaped is honest and practical.
• If your path is long and discovery is costly, inverse j-shaped keeps the pipeline healthy.
• Re-evaluate every quarter and run holdout tests to validate lift.

You also have inverse J-shaped

Attributes 60 percent of the credit to the first interaction, and 20 percent of the interaction that led to the conversion. The remaining 20 percent is spread across other interactions in the conversion path.

Choose this model if you want to give credit to both the first interaction and the converting interaction, but with more weight on the first interaction.

When to use j-shaped (use cases and tradeoffs)

The j-shaped attribution model fits when you want to monetize demand quickly but still understand what sparked the journey. It is popular for performance-driven teams that mix paid media, SEO content, and lifecycle email.

Best fit scenarios

• Short to medium sales cycles where last touch meaningfully closes intent.
• Strong landing pages and CRO where optimization on the final step lifts revenue.
• Search-led funnels where branded and high-intent non-brand queries convert.
• Retargeting-heavy strategies that legitimately move users to purchase.
• E-commerce with promotion-driven moments and clear last touch triggers.
• B2B with lead forms where SDR or demo booking is closely tied to the last visit.

In these contexts, the j-shaped attribution model helps prioritize investment into the last mile while keeping the lights on for discovery.

Limitations and signals you shouldn't use it

• If awareness is your biggest constraint and paid social seeds most journeys, an inverse j-shaped or first touch model could be more useful.
• If middle touches are doing the heavy lifting (e.g., product reviews, comparison pages), a linear or time decay model may be fairer.
• If your lookback window is too short for your buying cycle, you will over-credit last touch.
• If you see last touch channels absorbing 80 to 90 percent of credit even with j-shaped, investigate tagging or missing middle touches.

Popular in HubSpot

The j-shaped attribution model is one of the HubSpot attribution models you can select in reports. It appears in contact, deal, and revenue attribution reporting, letting teams map interactions across the convert path into business outcomes.

Where j-shaped appears in HubSpot reports

You’ll find j-shaped in Attribution reports inside the Reports library and custom reports builder. It is available for contact create, deal create, and revenue attribution. For a clear overview of attribution reporting concepts in the tool, read HubSpot’s guide on understand attribution reporting.

When enabled, you can break down credit by source, campaign, ad group, content, and more. Use filters for lookback window and lifecycle stage to keep your analysis clean.

How to select and configure it in HubSpot (practical notes)

Quick setup path:

1. Open Reports, choose Attribution.
2. Select the goal (contacts, deals, or revenue).
3. Choose the j-shaped attribution model from the list.
4. Set your lookback window based on typical buying cycle.
5. Add breakdowns like source and campaign to find winners.

Then compare against other attribution models side-by-side. Make your initial budget allocation decision using j-shaped, validate patterns with inverse and linear, and check consistency against your CRM pipeline reports.

If you need help instrumenting paid channels, our paid media management approach ensures UTMs and conversion events line up with HubSpot and ad platforms for clean reporting.

HubSpot caveats and data hygiene tips

For accurate j-shaped results in HubSpot attribution models:

• Use consistent UTMs across all paid media and emails.
• Turn on auto-tagging where possible and avoid manual overrides in ads.
• Connect ad accounts natively to sync campaigns and costs.
• Deduplicate contacts and unify identities across devices where possible.
• Audit your cookie consent banner so tracking is reliable and compliant.

Small gaps in tagging can move a user to direct or unknown, inflating last touch. A quick audit keeps the j-shaped attribution model trustworthy.

Implementation checklist (tagging, lookback windows, data quality)

Implementing the j-shaped attribution model is mostly about clean inputs. If touchpoints are well-tagged and stitched to contacts or orders, the model will reflect reality closely enough to drive decisions.

Required data and UTMs

Minimum viable data for reliable attribution reporting:

• Channel and campaign UTMs for every paid click: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, utm_term where relevant.
• Source tracking for organic, referral, and direct.
• Lead capture events tied to contacts or orders.
• Deal or order value to enable revenue attribution, not just conversions.
• Session identity resolution via cookies and CRM contact association.

UTM hygiene tips:

• Standardize medium values (e.g., cpc, email, social).
• Use lowercase and avoid spaces for consistency.
• Never append UTMs to internal links.
• Document naming conventions so agencies and teams stay aligned.

Lookback window settings and matching rules

Set the lookback window to match buying cycle length. For e-commerce, 7 to 30 days often works. For B2B, 30 to 90 days is common. If your cycle is longer, extend to 120 or 180 days for a full picture.

Tips for window selection:

• Check median time-to-conversion and time-to-close across cohorts.
• Run sensitivity analysis: does 30-day vs 90-day shift channel credit dramatically?
• If retargeting budgets are high, verify that the last touch credit is not overstated by an overly short window.

Matching rules matter. If a buyer has multiple touches on the same day, define tie-breakers like latest timestamp wins for last touch and earliest for first touch to keep results deterministic.

Mapping touchpoints to revenue

For revenue attribution, connect deals or orders to contacts and ensure the conversion event is captured as the last touch in the path. In B2B, map opportunities to the primary contact and include associated contacts where influence is real.

Good practice:

• Use contact-to-deal association rules that reflect your sales process.
• Exclude internal traffic and test orders.
• Map refunds or negative adjustments to correct revenue totals.
• Group by channel and campaign after credit assignment to guide budget changes.

6th Man note: quick tagging audit and post-purchase survey

We like to start fast: a 30-minute UTM and conversion event audit, plus a simple post-purchase survey to ground-truth what attribution models say. Surveys capture self-reported discovery that pixels miss. The j-shaped attribution model gets stronger when you reconcile it with real user input.

If you need help, our marketing automation setup and case studies show how we connect the dots from click to revenue.

Validate and test your attribution (surveys, holdouts, sanity checks)

Attribution without validation leads to false confidence. Combine the j-shaped attribution model with surveys, holdouts, and KPI sanity checks so your decisions rest on more than one method.

Post-purchase survey (if you don't know where to start, start here)

Post-purchase or post-signup surveys give you a fast, directional answer to “What influenced you most?” They capture dark social, word-of-mouth, and channels hidden by privacy and cookie limits.

Start with a short, optional form:

• How did you first hear about us? (free text plus options)
• What influenced your decision today? (multiple select)
• Which of these did you see before purchasing? (channels list)

Use responses to calibrate the j-shaped attribution model. If surveys show strong first-touch influence from podcasts while your analytics shows little, consider testing inverse j-shaped for top-of-funnel decisions.

Holdout tests and quick experiments

Holdouts validate whether a channel truly drives incremental impact. Run geo-split tests or time-bound pauses for a subset of audiences and measure changes in revenue or conversions attributed by the j-shaped attribution model.

Fast options:

• Pause a retargeting ad group for a week in a small region and track last touch shifts.
• Cut branded search bids in a low-priority market to see cannibalization effects.
• Scale a top-of-funnel campaign and watch first touch lift versus control markets.

Pair these with cohort analysis by acquisition source to measure LTV changes over time.

Sanity checks and KPIs to monitor

Every month, look for consistency over time, not just one-off wins.

• Channel contribution stability: Is last touch always too dominant?
• Blended CAC and MER vs attributed CAC: Are they aligned?
• Channel LTV by first touch and last touch cohorts.
• Share of unattributed or direct traffic: Keep it in check.

If numbers diverge, inspect tagging, lookback windows, and cross-device identity. The j-shaped attribution model should tell a story that matches what your sales team sees.

Attribution is important.

If you don't know where to start, start with a post-purchase survey. The purpose of attribution reporting is to help you understand how marketing efforts inspire users to convert and build relationships with your brand. Marketing attribution helps you see patterns and actions that your team can use to improve strategies in the future.

How j-shaped changes optimization decisions

Adopting the j-shaped attribution model changes what you scale, cut, and test first. It tends to elevate last-mile tactics while preserving a baseline for discovery.

Paid media: bidding and budget allocation

Budget allocation under j-shaped often looks like this:

• Increase bids on high-intent search terms and protected brand campaigns that close.
• Protect retargeting budgets that consistently win last touch credit.
• Maintain a steady awareness spend to feed first touch demand.
• Use audience layering to move more upper-funnel users into retargeting pools.

Practical tips:

• Run portfolio bidding with ROAS targets aligned to j-shaped revenue attribution.
• Segment campaigns by funnel stage so reporting reflects intent.
• Feed creative learnings back to upper-funnel channels that generate first touch.

If you want experienced hands on your accounts, our Google Ads management and paid media management are built for measurable outcomes.

Content and CRO: what to prioritize

The j-shaped attribution model highlights the final steps that convince buyers. Prioritize:

• High-converting landing pages with clear value, proof, and frictionless forms.
• Comparison and pricing pages that frequently appear before conversion.
• Checkout optimizations, trust badges, and cart recovery flows for e-commerce.
• Email nudges that close the gap for trial-to-paid or demo-to-close.

Balance that with top-of-funnel content that seeds first touch: thought leadership, calculators, buyer guides. Map content to the convert path so middle assists are not lost. If landing pages need a lift, our team builds high-converting landing pages that match intent.

Measuring long-term impact (LTV and cohorts)

Short-term revenue attribution is not the full story. Use cohort reporting by first touch to understand lifetime value and retention. If discovery channels produce higher LTV, reinvest even if their last touch credit is lower under the j-shaped attribution model.

Ideas to try:

• Track LTV by acquisition channel at 30, 60, 180 days.
• Compare repeat purchase rates by first touch cohort.
• Tie product usage or onboarding completion to both first and last touch sources.

When LTV is a priority, many teams blend models: j-shaped for in-quarter allocation, inverse j-shaped for long-term brand-building decisions.

Shortcuts for busy teams (two practical tactics)

No time, but need signal fast? Use these two shortcuts to make the j-shaped attribution model actionable this week.

Survey templates you can run today

Drop this single optional question on your checkout or thank-you page:

• How did you first hear about us?
  • Google search
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • A friend or colleague
  • Podcast
  • Other: [free text]

Then a second question via email nurture after seven days:

• What influenced your decision most today?
  • Website content
  • Customer reviews
  • Pricing or offer
  • Free trial or demo
  • Retargeting ad

Compare results to what the j-shaped attribution model reports. If self-reported first touch skews toward a channel you under-credit in tracking, test budget shifts.

Quick tagging audit: 30- to 60-minute checklist

Use this one-hour checklist to firm up your inputs:

1. List all active paid channels and ensure UTMs are on every ad.
2. Standardize utm_medium values (cpc, social, email, display).
3. Check email links for UTMs and auto-tagging settings.
4. Verify conversion events fire on the correct page with one ID.
5. Exclude internal traffic and payment gateways from analytics.
6. Confirm ad platform accounts are connected to your CRM.
7. Review lookback window defaults and align with buying cycle.

A clean tracking foundation makes the j-shaped attribution model far more reliable.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Most attribution frustrations come from inputs, not the model. Watch for these pitfalls so your j-shaped attribution model stays credible and useful.

Tagging mistakes and missing data

Symptoms:

• Sudden spikes in direct or unknown traffic.
• Last touch credit dominates far beyond 60 percent.
• Paid campaigns with clicks but no attributed conversions.

Fixes:

• Centralize UTM rules and enforce them across teams and agencies.
• Audit your consent management setup for tracking drops.
• Backfill source data where possible using CRM notes or surveys.
• Ensure cross-domain tracking if checkout is on a subdomain or separate site.

Small sample sizes and overfitting

When volume is low, small changes look like big swings. Don’t overreact to weekly noise.

• Aggregate by month or quarter for decisions.
• Use rolling averages and significance checks.
• Run controlled tests before major reallocations.
• Compare multiple attribution models to spot outliers.

If your data is thin, lean on qualitative inputs until volume grows. The j-shaped attribution model is powerful, but it still needs enough touchpoints to be stable.

How 6th Man can help (contact us to implement j-shaped attribution)

If you want a senior team to set up, validate, and operationalize the j-shaped attribution model, we can plug in fast. Our approach combines data hygiene, HubSpot configuration, and growth experiments that move the metrics that matter.

What a fast engagement looks like

Week 1 to 2:

• Tagging audit, lookback window alignment, and CRM mapping.
• HubSpot attribution reporting configured with j-shaped and comparison models.
• Post-purchase survey live with clear reporting.

Week 3 to 4:

• Insights review by channel and campaign with revenue attribution.
• Optimization plan across paid, content, and CRO.
• One holdout or geo test to validate incremental lift.

Week 5 and beyond:

• Monthly decision cycles and creative iteration.
• Cohort LTV tracking by first touch.
• Clear reporting against business KPIs, not vanity metrics.

Contact link / next steps

Want this working in your business without slowing down? Explore our work in case studies, see how we think in our articles, and talk to 6th Man about implementing the j-shaped attribution model end to end.

Smart attribution unlocks better creative, sharper bidding, and cleaner reporting. With the j-shaped attribution model in place, you will make faster, clearer decisions that drive growth.