Use first and latest touch attribution without overclaiming

A prospective learner may discover a course through Google, return through an email and complete payment from an affiliate link. Crediting only the final visit hides how the buyer first found you. Crediting only the first visit hides what brought them back.

RTObase keeps both views so your team can ask a better question: did a campaign introduce the buyer, or did it help the buyer return before the recorded outcome?

The fictional example

Jordan first visits Harbour Skills Institute from a Google campaign tagged rsa_sydney. Two weeks later, Jordan follows an email link tagged september_places and completes a paid enrolment.

The person and campaigns are fictional. The attribution fields and reporting workflow are from RTObase.

View	Campaign credited in the example
First touch	Google, rsa_sydney
Latest touch	Email, september_places

Neither view proves that one campaign caused the decision. Each records a different point in the journey.

Before you start

Use tagged links from the channels you already operate. Standard utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign values work, as do Google Ads auto-tagging and RTObase affiliate links.

Choose the outcome you want to review. Useful outcomes include an enquiry, completed enrolment or successful payment. For paid courses, payment usually gives the clearest commercial result because recorded refunds reduce net value.

1. Open Campaign results

Go to Marketing → Performance → Campaign results.

Campaign results connect tagged visits with outcomes recorded in RTObase.

Start with a 30 day view for current activity. Use 90 days when the decision takes longer or the campaign has low volume. Filter to one course when several courses use similar campaign names.

2. Compare the two attribution views

Select First touch to see the earliest saved campaign associated with each buyer journey. This helps identify what introduced the person.

Select Latest touch to see the most recent saved campaign before the recorded outcome. This helps identify what brought the person back.

Open the underlying record when you need to understand why the two views differ.

For the fictional Jordan journey, the Google campaign appears in First touch and the email campaign appears in Latest touch. The two totals can both be correct because they answer different questions.

3. Read the outcome columns

Campaign results can show attributed enquiries, enrolments, successful payments and net AUD payment value after recorded refunds.

Use the result that matches the campaign's job:

Campaign job	Useful result
Generate employer conversations	Attributed enquiries
Fill a free course	Attributed enrolments
Sell a paid public course	Successful payments and net AUD
Bring undecided buyers back	Latest-touch outcomes
Build initial awareness	First-touch outcomes over a longer period

Do not use All channels as a campaign conversion rate. It includes operational outcomes recorded through other paths, such as phone, staff entry or import, whether campaign attribution exists or not.

4. Review a useful period

A short period can make a campaign that starts journeys look weak because the eventual outcomes have not happened yet. A long period can hide a recent change.

Compare 30 and 90 days, then look for a pattern rather than a single isolated conversion. For a course with only a few starts each year, review by intake or campaign period instead of expecting a stable weekly rate.

Keep provider metrics alongside this report. Google Ads or another channel remains the source for spend, impressions and clicks. RTObase is the source for the enquiry, enrolment and payment outcome. You need both to assess cost and result.

5. Keep testing activity separate

When testing a link, use a clear test campaign marker. Campaign results hide test markers by default unless you choose to include them.

Complete the whole journey. A tagged page visit confirms that the link opened, but it does not confirm that the attribution reached the enquiry, enrolment or payment.

Adapt the review to your RTO

For short course sales, the latest touch before payment may matter most. For employer training, the first campaign that created the enquiry may be more useful because staff handle the rest of the sale. For longer qualifications, review both over a wider period and expect several visits before enrolment.

Use consistent campaign naming across channels. A simple pattern such as course, location and month makes later comparison easier without asking staff to decode abbreviations.

Common mistakes

• Calling attribution proof that a campaign caused the outcome.
• Comparing first-touch and latest-touch totals as if one must be wrong.
• Judging a long enrolment journey over seven days.
• Mixing several courses with different values in one conclusion.
• Treating All channels as attributed campaign traffic.
• Reviewing payments without accounting for recorded refunds.
• Stopping at the click report instead of checking the RTO outcome.

Final check

Choose one recent enrolment and confirm:

1. The original tagged source appears as the first touch.
2. Any later tagged return appears as the latest touch.
3. The enrolment or payment is present in Campaign results.
4. The selected time range includes the full journey.
5. The team can explain what each view means without calling it causation.

Once that record makes sense, use the aggregate view to compare campaigns. The purpose is not to award perfect credit. It is to see more of the buyer journey before changing spend or content.