Brian Halligan, HubSpot, CEO & Co-founder
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Basically, attribution reporting is a way of tracking the content and marketing channels that are leading to conversions and sales. Marketing attribution lights up the path your leads and customers walk along as they saunter through the Buyer’s Journey. For marketers, attribution reporting can prove ROI, highlight channels that are driving conversions, and illuminate dead efforts that are worth cutting off.
As critical as attribution reporting is to marketing initiatives, no two companies will be equally equipped to capture the same information—and attribution reporting comes in all shapes and sizes. The maturity of your company’s multi-touch attribution reporting abilities will dictate how you’ll want to move forward.
Here’s how to determine your company’s attribution reporting maturity level:
LeadsRX is fairly straightforward and includes simple installation. That makes it especially useful for small and mid-sized businesses that need to simplify their multi-touch attribution reporting. Once the tool is set up, you unlock several attribution tools, including the following:
As a whole, LeadsRX is a sturdy addition for both B2B and B2C marketers who want to streamline their marketing attribution efforts.
Terminus is best known as a tool for B2B marketers, but it also includes dashboards that present numbers in an easy-to-understand layout. A big advantage of Terminus is that it’s built with a range of integrations so you can easily weave an unbroken web within your tech stack. Some popular integrations include:
Terminus is also well known for its customer support features, and the company even offers training programs.
CAKE is a versatile tool, crafted for businesses of all sizes. Although it doesn’t include audience segmentation, it does lay out handy tracking features, such as cross-channel attribution reporting and ROI tracking. CAKE is another company known for stellar support. It offers 24/7 customer service, as well as in-person training options.
In first-touch attribution models, you weigh the credit fully on that first-touch interaction. This is especially useful for companies that are trying to discover which content is pulling in leads. Because it shows you what channels and content is capturing the most attention, first-touch models can reveal which areas are producing leads and which efforts are worth ditching.
In last-touch attribution models, all of the credit goes to the last touchpoint your prospect hits before they are converted. Implementing the last-touch model is a great way to shed light on what is inspiring customers to act. This model is especially helpful for companies that are churning out plenty of leads but having a tough time turning those leads into conversions. Because you can pinpoint that last contact point, last-touch models make it easy to see which strategies and channels are pushing contacts along, and which ones are failing to convert.
To set up a 50/50 attribution model, you’ll want to divide credit evenly between your first touchpoint and the last touchpoint that comes before lead creation. Essentially, this model weighs your attention-grabbing step and action step evenly. That makes it easier to gauge your marketing efforts on a broader scale.
Time decay models divvy credit up among all of your touchpoints along the customer journey or your conversion path. As the name suggests, this model gives more weight to those touchpoints closest to a sale. This is a good model if you have a solid lead generation engine but are having a tough time pushing leads down the funnel. When it comes to the Buyer’s Journey, a time decay model is built to identify prospects in the consideration and conversion stages.
In a linear model, you divvy credit up evenly along all of your touchpoints. This is a handy model when you want to set goals and boost transparency. It reveals the channels or interactions that contribute to a sale that may otherwise be overlooked.
In a u-shaped model, 80 percent of credit is divided equally between your first touch and lead creation. The rest of your credit goes to all of those touchpoints that fall between those two milestones. This model is best for measuring lead generation attribution.
When your attribution reporting is w-shaped, you divide credit evenly between three touchpoints: first touch, lead creation, and qualified lead. Because it’s stretched evenly across milestones, this model illuminates the broader story of your campaigns.
When it comes to picking the right marketing attribution reporting method for your company, there isn’t a cookie-cutter solution. In some cases, you may want to mix and match several models based on your buyer personas and the Buyer’s Journey.
Above all else, your attribution model should fit your goals, capitalize on your current marketing strengths, and fill in any reporting gaps. Here are some questions to help you pick out the right attribution model for your business:
By digging into your current strengths, weaknesses, and goals, you’ll be able to line your needs up with the model or models that reveal everything you need to fuel the best marketing attribution reporting.
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HubSpot has built-in functions made specifically to boost your marketing attribution reporting capabilities. In fact, HubSpot has two separate types of multi-touch attribution reports: multi-touch contact attribution and multi-touch revenue attribution.
Wondering how HubSpot’s multi-touch reports are set up? Here are the touchpoints HubSpot’s reporting hinges on:
You’ll also have access to multi-touch revenue attribution reporting within HubSpot. This lays out the touchpoints that influence a closed deal. These reports are based on the following:
In order to set up your attribution reporting in HubSpot, you’ll need access to its Marketing Hub Enterprise, Customer Reporting, and Sales Hub.
Marketo is another powerful platform that can boost your team’s attribution reporting success. Marketo gives users three different choices of attribution modes:
When you’re building your Marketo reporting, there are three important best practices to guide your actions:
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Bizible is best known for its Google Ads for Salesforce replacement feature, but it has become a force in the B2B campaign world recently—and it’s connected to both Adobe and Marketo. Bizible provides six different multi-touch attribution models:
It’s important to note that Bizible is made for enterprise-level businesses. It’s set up to cater to account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns, it includes advanced closed-loop reporting functions, and it features high-level dashboards.
Salesforce is less known for its marketing reporting, but it’s still both powerful and flexible. It offers several out-of-the-box options for marketers who want to map out attribution reporting.
Here are a few of the key reporting features Salesforce offers:
LeanData is a solid option if you want to link up Salesforce accounts and pin down campaign attribution reports. As a whole, there are three key features to take advantage of when using LeanData to build marketing attribution campaigns:
Google Ads is one of the most popular paid platforms out there. When it comes to tracking activity, Google’s attribution is session-based. It uses cookies to track conversions and touchpoints. Google gives you several options when it comes to attribution reporting, including First Click, Last Click, Time Decay, Linear, Position Based, and Data-Driven.
Google Ads now lets you use YouTube to track attribution reporting. YouTube uses a data-driven model that measures clicks as well as video engagements. You can also use YouTube attribution to measure how well ads run and how they relate to search campaigns.
Unlike Google, Facebook only tracks activity when users are logged in. That means they’ll be measured differently from Google’s session-based reporting. As a default, Facebook provides a last-touch attribution model. However, default reporting is restricted to a 28-day window. Within Facebook’s attribution reporting, you have the option of tracking performance reporting along everything from organic and paid interactions to direct interactions. You can also track custom reports by group or access cross-device reporting.
Online marketing attribution includes your company’s website, along with all of those digital touchpoints that carry leads through an online path. Here are a few examples of online marketing touchpoints:
Offline marketing attribution reporting analyzes the interactions and actions your potential customers take offline. There may be more offline marketing touchpoints built into your operation than you realize. Here are some common offline attribution paths:
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