Attribution Overview
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We will delve into the concept of attribution for B2B companies and explore various attribution models commonly employed to measure marketing effectiveness. By understanding attribution, businesses can gain valuable insights into which marketing channels, campaigns, and activities contribute most significantly to driving desired outcomes, such as revenue, pipeline generation, and lead acquisition.
Attribution is the process of identifying and assigning value to different touchpoints or interactions that a customer experiences throughout their journey toward purchasing a product or service. It enables marketing and sales teams to understand which channels, campaigns, and activities are most effective in driving conversions and optimize their strategies accordingly.
There are several attribution models that B2B companies can use to measure their marketing efforts. Let’s take a look at the three most widely used models:
Direct Source Attribution (First Touch or Last Touch)
Direct source attribution, also known as first touch or last touch attribution, is a straightforward model that attributes 100% of the credit for a conversion to a single touchpoint. In the first touch model, the initial touchpoint that generates a new lead or purchase opportunity receives full credit. Conversely, in the last touch model, the final touchpoint prior to conversion is credited.
Influence Attribution
Influence attribution is the practice of giving equal credit to all touchpoints that occur along the buyer’s journey. This method can lead to over-inflated revenue attribution, as it effectively duplicates the credit for each touchpoint.
Distributed Attribution (Multi-Touch Attribution)
Distributed attribution, also known as multi-touch attribution, is the practice of distributing credit across all touchpoints along the buyer's journey. The percentage of credit allocated to each touchpoint can be evenly distributed or weighted based on the timing of its occurrence or its perceived intent level.
To illustrate how these attribution models differ, let's consider the following example buyer journey:
A lead is acquired through a trade show event sponsored by the company.
Post-event, an email is dispatched, nudging the lead to explore our website.
Fast forward three months, and the lead returns to the website, this time submitting a form requesting a personalized product demo.
The sales lead then attends a regional event hosted by the company during the active sales cycle.
Post-event, the prospect becomes a customer and makes an initial purchase.
Direct Source Attribution: In this instance, the sale is entirely credited to either the trade show event (first touch) or the last touchpoint before qualification (form submission).
Influence Attribution: Every significant touchpoint along the buyer's journey receives full credit for the sale, resulting in a quadrupled attributed revenue amount.
Distributed Attribution: Credit is evenly distributed across all touchpoints, with each receiving 25% of the credit.
The choice of attribution model depends on the specific measurement objectives and the maturity of the company's go-to-market organization. Lean Scale recommends building and maintaining all three attribution models to address various measurement needs:
Direct Source Attribution: Ideal for predicting funnel conversion rates, establishing performance benchmarks, and fine-tuning short-term strategies.
Influence Attribution: This is a great way to compare similar campaigns, but it's not the best method to measure return on marketing investment (ROMI).
Distributed Attribution: Best used for measuring ROMI and marketing's contribution to revenue, but it does take longer for the data to mature, as we must wait for the entire buyer journey to unfold.
If your company doesn’t have an attribution model in place, it’s a good idea to start with direct source attribution. By setting up high-quality first touch and last touch data capture processes, you can measure marketing performance, set performance targets by channel, and use data-driven insights to optimize your funnel.
Attribution is a critical part of understanding marketing effectiveness for B2B companies. By using the right attribution models, businesses can optimize their marketing strategy, allocate resources more effectively, and improve overall ROI. If you need help building attribution models and managing data processes, Lean Scale can help.