J-shaped and last paid touch, the two models that show up in budget meetings

Two questions come up in a budget meeting. The first is how to divide credit in a way everyone can agree with. The second is narrower: of the money we spent, what closed? The three standard multi-touch models don't answer the second one. Two others do, one for each question.

J-shaped, weighting the close without erasing the opener

Position-based splits credit 40/20/40 across the start, middle and end of a journey. J-shaped tilts that curve toward the close, commonly something like 20% to the first touch, 20% across the middle and 60% to the last.

The assumption is that discovery matters and deserves recognition, but that in this category the real work happens at the close.

It fits when your final interaction is doing heavy lifting: a strong offer, a well-timed reminder, a checkout that converts.

Last paid touch, of the money you spent what closed

This one is structurally different. It asks which of the paid interactions in a journey came last. Organic touches such as brand search, direct visits and email to existing customers are skipped by the calculation entirely.

The assumption isn't that organic doesn't matter. It's that organic isn't a budget decision. You're not choosing how much to spend on someone typing your domain name into a browser.

Where it genuinely helps:

• Allocating paid budget between paid channels, without organic absorbing credit you can't act on
• Judging retargeting fairly, since an organic revisit usually comes first
• Any store where a large share of orders close on brand search, which last touch would credit for demand advertising created

Reading the two together

A channel that looks strong on last paid and weak on J-shaped is closing paid journeys that organic touches also assisted. A channel strong on J-shaped and weak on last paid is opening journeys that close organically, which is exactly the pattern that gets awareness campaigns cut.

In Flowfy both models run over the same stored journeys inside a 90-day window, alongside the rest, so you can read one period under both and compare.

The trap in last paid touch

Because it skips organic, it makes the paid share of your business look bigger than it is. Report last-paid numbers to someone who assumes full-journey attribution and you'll overstate what advertising is doing.

The fix is naming the model every time you present a number. "ROAS was 3.2" doesn't mean anything on its own. "ROAS was 3.2 on last paid touch" means something specific.

Questions that come up in the room

Which one should be my default? J-shaped if you want a single general model. Last paid touch as a second view, specifically when allocating paid budget.

Does J-shaped have a standard weighting? There's no agreed one. What matters is fixing it and stating it, so your periods stay comparable.

Can I pay creators on last paid touch? Only if the creator link is the paid touch. If a creator opens journeys that close on paid search, last paid touch credits the search and pays the creator nothing.

One last thing

Use last paid touch only in the paid allocation meeting, and read J-shaped alongside it in the same session. Whatever number comes out of either, write the model name next to it.