Innovation has become a key factor for enterprises’ to gain core competitive advantage in the fiercely competitive market. How to drive enterprises’ persistent innovation has become an important concern for both practitioners and academia. Based on a dataset encompassing 2 061 A-share listed manufacturing firms in China from 2011 to 2021， it conducted an empirical test to explore the effects of a enterprises’ digital transformation on their persistent innovation investment and the underlying mechanisms of their interplay. The findings indicate that digital transformation positively enhances presistent innovation investment， mediated by managerial innovation attention. Moreover， enterprises’ performance feedback shortfalls weaken the positive relationships between enterprises’ digital transformation and presistent innovation investment. Furthermore， considering the heterogeneity of ownership and industry， the impact of enterprises’ digital transformation on presistent innovation investment is further confirmed in private enterprises and high-tech industries， whereas this relationship is not significant in state-owned enterprises and non-high-tech industries. It reveals the mechanism of managerial innovation attention in the relationship between enterprises’ digital transformation and presistent innovation investment， as well as the moderating effect of enterprises’ performance feedback shortfalls on this relationship. Additionally， it provides new reference for how traditional manufacturing enterprises advance persistent innovation in the context of digitalization.