---
title: "Introduction to Attribution and Customer Journeys"
slug: "customer-journey-and-attribution"
updated: 2025-01-23T14:20:30Z
published: 2025-01-23T14:20:30Z
canonical: "docs.mapp.com/customer-journey-and-attribution"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mapp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction to Attribution and Customer Journeys

Attribution helps you determine how much credit each campaign interaction deserves for achieving a specific goal on your website. To make this possible, our system uses the concept of **Customer Journeys**, which are sequences of campaign interactions leading up to a defined **Website Goal**.

## 1 Website Goals

Website goals are specific actions that indicate meaningful user engagement or conversion (e.g., placing an order or subscribing to a newsletter). These goals are the foundation for creating Customer Journeys and enabling attribution calculations. Without website goals, there are no Customer Journeys, and therefore no attribution is possible.

- **Why are website goals important?**

A website goal tells the system what constitutes a successful user action. Once a goal is defined, our tool tracks all campaign interactions that lead up to this goal, creating a Customer Journey.
- **Examples of website goals:**
  - **Order** (activated by default)
  - **Product added to the shopping cart**
  - **Custom Events** (e.g., newsletter subscriptions, downloads)

> [!NOTE]
> For more information on setting up website goals, refer to our training chapter on [Analysis of Goal Achievement](/v1/docs/analyses-6-analysis-of-goal-achievement).

---

## 2 Customer Journeys

A **Customer Journey** is a record of all tracked campaign interactions that occur before achieving a defined website goal. By capturing the sequence of user interactions, it provides the foundation for attribution.

**Key Details about Customer Journeys:**

- Only successful campaigns—those that lead to a website goal—are saved.
- A maximum of 15 campaign interactions are recorded. If more interactions occur, the first and last 14 are saved.
- The default tracking period is **30 days** before the goal but can be extended to **60 days** per campaign configuration.

**Why Customer Journeys Matter for Attribution:** Customer Journeys provide the data needed to assign credit for a goal to one or more campaigns. Attribution models then calculate how much credit each interaction deserves.

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## **3 How Website Goals and Customer Journeys Work Together**

The image illustrates how website goals define Customer Journeys and enable attribution:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/554b9b98-6720-4d8b-9919-c7b203d72648/Images/Documentation/CJ.png)

1. A user interacts with **four campaigns** in sequence
2. The user completes two website goals during their interaction:
  - **First Order:** Achieved after the **SEA** Campaign.
  - **Second Order:** Achieved after the **Direct** Campaign.
  - **Newsletter Registration:** Completed after the **Direct** Campaign.
3. Each time a website goal was reached, this resulted in creating a **three distinct Customer Journey**.

This example demonstrates how website goals trigger the creation of Customer Journeys. Each journey captures campaign interactions leading up to a specific goal, allowing attribution models to analyze and assign credit appropriately.

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## 4 Overview of Attribution

Attribution models dictate how credit for website goals is distributed among campaigns within a Customer Journey. They allow you to analyze campaign performance and optimize your marketing strategies.

- **What is Attribution?**

Attribution determines which campaign interactions within the Customer Journey receive credit for a website goal.
- **Types of Attribution Models:**
  - **Single Assignment Models:** Assign credit to one campaign per goal, focusing on a specific interaction.
  - **Multiple Assignment Models:** Distribute credit across multiple campaigns, providing a more comprehensive view of the Customer Journey.

Explore the detailed explanation and examples of each attribution model to decide which best suits your goals:

- [Single Assignment Models](/docs/customer-journey-and-attribution#)
- [Multiple Assignment Models](/docs/customer-journey-and-attribution#)