What does last click leave out?
The first half of the story. Most people meet a business more than once before they buy. The ads that do the introducing, such as a Meta video or a YouTube spot, are rarely the last thing clicked. The channels that close (a search for your name, a reminder email, a retargeting ad) almost always are. Under last click, the closers look brilliant and the introducers look like waste.
That bias is predictable, which makes last click usable if you know about it. The danger is acting on it as if it were the whole truth, and switching off the channel that was filling the top of the funnel.
What happened when a Hervey Bay tackle shop paused its weakest channel? (example figures)
An online fishing tackle shop in Hervey Bay looked at its Google Analytics report under last click. Meta had cost $2,000 in the month and was credited with only $1,800 in sales. Brand search and email were credited with most of the rest. The owner paused Meta for a month and compared.
| Meta running | Meta paused | |
|---|---|---|
| Meta spend | $2,000 | $0 |
| Sales credited to Meta, last click | $1,800 | $0 |
| Sales credited to searches for the shop's name | $9,000 | $6,100 |
| Sales credited to email | $5,200 | $4,300 |
| Total shop sales | $24,000 | $18,500 |
Last click said Meta was worth $1,800. Switching it off took $5,500 out of the month. Fewer people were discovering the shop on Instagram, so fewer were searching for its name a few days later or joining the email list. Brand search and email had been taking the credit for introductions Meta made.
A month is a short test and other things change too (the season, the weather, a competitor's sale), so one paused month is a strong hint, not proof. It was enough for the owner to switch Meta back on and stop judging it by last click alone. The careful version of this test is in the entry on incrementality.
When is last click good enough?
When the path to a sale is short. A locksmith's customer is locked out, searches, clicks and calls within ten minutes, and there is no earlier touch to credit. An emergency plumber, a tow truck and a same-day courier are in the same position. Last click describes those businesses well.
It breaks down as the decision stretches out: furniture, renovations, weddings, anything people research for weeks. For those, read last click for the closing channels and look elsewhere (data-driven reports, your total sales, the answer to "how did you hear about us?") for the opening ones.
Which rule were your dashboard numbers counted under?
Under whichever attribution setting each account uses: CoraVision reads conversions from Google Ads, and visits by channel and key events from Google Analytics 4, every night, and each figure arrives already credited by that account's setting. Cora can look at the setting with you on your own screen during a session, so the rule is known before anyone switches a channel off.
Questions
Does Google Analytics 4 still offer last click?
Yes. Alongside data-driven, GA4 offers a paid and organic last click model, chosen in the property's attribution settings. Google Ads also keeps last click as an option for each conversion action, after it retired the other rules-based models in 2023.
Why do direct visits get no credit under GA4's last click?
GA4's paid and organic last click model skips direct traffic when the person clicked something earlier (Google Analytics Help, on GA4's attribution models). Typing your address means they already knew you, so the credit goes to the last click that brought them in.
Is last click the same as last touch?
Not quite. Last touch can count an ad someone only saw. Last click needs a click. Meta's default counts views as well as clicks, which is one reason Meta often claims more sales than a last-click report gives it.