Guide Series

Attribution in the Age of AI

Customer journeys increasingly begin inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews — where no tracking pixel can follow. This series compares the methods, models, and tools for measuring marketing when the first touch is invisible. Written for marketing agencies. Deliberately vendor-neutral.

5 guides·~75 minutes total·Updated July 2026
Guide 1 of 5July 2026·16 min read

MMM vs. Multi-Touch Attribution vs. Incrementality Testing: Choosing a Measurement Stack in the AI Era

The three pillars of marketing measurement compared side by side — what each can and cannot tell you, how AI-driven customer journeys break each of them, and a decision framework for agencies by client size.

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Guide 2 of 5July 2026·14 min read

Last-Click, Linear, Time-Decay, Data-Driven: Every Attribution Model Compared — and Where They Break in the AI Era

A model-by-model comparison of rule-based and data-driven attribution, why GA4 retired most of them, and why every click-based model misses the journeys that now start inside an AI assistant.

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Guide 3 of 5July 2026·15 min read

How to Track Traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini & AI Overviews: A Platform-by-Platform Comparison

Exactly how each AI platform shows up in your analytics — referrer strings, UTM behavior, dark-traffic pitfalls — plus a copy-paste GA4 setup and the proxy metrics for what you still can't see.

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Guide 4 of 5July 2026·15 min read

Attribution Software Compared: GA4, Triple Whale, Northbeam, Hyros, Rockerbox & Measured — an Agency Buyer's Guide

A vendor-neutral comparison of the major attribution platforms — methods, indicative pricing, best-fit client profiles, and the questions to ask every vendor about AI-era measurement.

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Guide 5 of 5July 2026·14 min read

AI Visibility Monitoring Tools Compared: Measuring Brand Presence in ChatGPT, Perplexity & AI Overviews

Attribution now starts before the click. A comparison of the tools that measure how often brands appear in AI answers — metrics, methodology pitfalls, and an agency playbook for reporting on it.

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About this series

These guides are written to be genuinely useful reference material for people who run marketing measurement — primarily agencies. They compare methods and tools on their merits, name limitations honestly (including of approaches adjacent to our own work), and don't recommend our products. Pricing and feature notes are indicative as of mid-2026; always verify with vendors. If you spot an error, we'd like to hear about it — being corrected in public is how reference material earns trust.