last-click attribution
Also called: last-touch attribution, last non-direct click
Last-click attribution is a reporting model that gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the final channel a user clicked before converting. In Google Analytics 4 it is called "Paid and organic last click," and it ignores direct traffic, crediting the last non-direct channel instead.
Most conversions are the end of a chain: a Google search, a blog visit, an email, a branded search a week later. Last-click attribution throws away that history and hands all the credit to whichever channel came last.
What GA4 actually does
GA4 now offers three attribution models: data-driven, Paid and organic last click, and Google paid channels last click. The last-click model ignores direct traffic, so credit flows to the last non-direct channel a user engaged before converting. Google confirms that “Paid and organic last click” and the older “Last non-direct click” are two names for the same model.
Google also retired its rules-based models (first click, linear, time decay, and position-based) across Analytics and Ads, leaving last-click and data-driven as the built-in options. Conversion actions that used a retired model were moved to data-driven automatically.
Example: a user finds you through an organic blog post, leaves, then returns days later via a branded search and buys. Last-click credits the branded search. The blog post that started everything shows zero conversions in a last-click report, even though it opened the door.
That blind spot hits SEO hardest, because organic discovery usually happens early in the journey, not at the final click.
How it affects your traffic
Last-click attribution systematically undercredits organic search, because SEO usually introduces or educates a visitor who converts later through a branded search or a direct visit. If you judge content by last-click conversions alone, the pages feeding your pipeline look worthless and get cut, which starves the top of the funnel. An SEO audit that reviews assisted conversions, entry pages, and full conversion paths shows where organic is doing hidden work before you make budget calls on incomplete data.
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