Reddit Just Pointed at the Industry's Favourite Lie. Last-Click Was Missing 97% of Its Value.
Reddit has gone public against last-click attribution, citing Fospha research that shows traditional measurement was missing 97% of the platform's value. The pitch is part of a broader push to convince marketers that research-phase ad spend deserves real credit.
Teams cannot keep relying on last-click results or simple conversion counts. They need to capture research behaviour, community engagement and early intent signals.
Reddit has come out swinging against last-click attribution. In a public push this week, the platform argued that marketers are still measuring performance the way they did in 2015, even after the rest of the buying journey has been rewired through community discussion, AI search and marketplace research. The cited evidence is a Fospha State of Commerce report showing traditional last-click measurement was missing 97% of Reddit's contribution to revenue.
The number sounds extreme until you look at where Reddit lives in the funnel. Buyers research on Reddit. They go to Google, Amazon or a brand's own site to buy. Last-click then hands all the credit to whichever surface caught the final tap. Reddit looks like wasted money on the dashboard. The actual influence is upstream.
That is the broader argument, and Reddit is not the only platform making it. Snapchat launched Unified Attribution this week. The Trade Desk has been pushing multi-touch and mix-model logic for years. The industry consensus is consolidating fast. Last-click was always a measurement convenience, not a model of how buyers behave.
Reddit is also putting code behind the rhetoric. The platform has rolled out Dual Attribution in beta, which pairs Reddit's first-party attribution with MMP and SKAN reporting inside Ads Manager. App advertisers get both numbers in one view. The model still hands credit to the touch closest to the conversion, but it lets buyers see where Reddit fits in the path.
Why it matters
For Australian marketers, this is less about Reddit specifically and more about how the measurement debate gets resolved this year. Most local brands still report on Google Analytics 4 last non-direct click. That model undervalues Reddit, YouTube, TikTok organic and a lot of branded content. CFOs make budget decisions on the back of that report. Budgets get cut from the channels that build demand. Budgets get loaded into the channels that capture it. The funnel collapses.
The brands that get out ahead are the ones that build a second view. Mix model, multi-touch, holdout tests, anything that adds context to the click-based default. Mutinex, Analytic Partners and Meridian are all available. There is no excuse left for running an attribution stack designed in 2015.
Share of Reddit's contribution to revenue that traditional last-click attribution was missing, per Fospha State of Commerce data
What to do about it
Run a holdout test on any channel where last-click reports near-zero contribution. Stop spending on it for one quarter. Watch what happens to total revenue, not last-click revenue.
Add a media mix model to your stack. Meridian is open-source and free. Mutinex offers a self-serve product in Australia. Stop pretending GA4 is sufficient.
Move your CMO scorecard from last-click attribution to incremental contribution. Different number, different conversation, different budget decisions.
Audit your branded search line. If branded search is your top performer in last-click, you are probably overpaying for traffic that would have come anyway.
Brief your agency that the report you want is incrementality, not last-click. They will adapt fast.
The sites where buyers actually research will keep claiming back the credit they deserve. The brands measuring on last-click will be the last to know.