Attribution

Attribution is the methodology for assigning credit to the marketing and sales touchpoints that influenced a deal. It answers the question: which activities actually drove revenue?

Why Attribution Matters

Without attribution, marketing and sales operate on gut feel. Marketing cannot prove which campaigns generate pipeline. Sales cannot identify which sequences convert. Leadership cannot allocate budget effectively. Attribution connects spend to revenue and makes the entire go-to-market machine measurable.

Common Attribution Models

• First-touch: 100% credit goes to the first interaction that created the lead. Favors top-of-funnel awareness activities.
• Last-touch: 100% credit goes to the final interaction before conversion. Favors bottom-of-funnel activities.
• Linear: Credit is distributed equally across all touchpoints. Simple but does not reflect reality.
• U-shaped: Heavier credit to the first and last touch, with the remainder split among middle touches.
• W-shaped: Credit weighted toward first touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation.
• Custom/algorithmic: Machine learning models that weight touchpoints based on statistical impact. Most accurate but hardest to implement.

The Attribution Challenge

No attribution model is perfect. B2B buying journeys involve multiple stakeholders, dark funnel activity that cannot be tracked, and long sales cycles where influence decays over time. The goal is not perfect accuracy but directional insight that is better than guessing.

RevOps and Attribution

RevOps owns the attribution infrastructure -- configuring tracking in the MAP and CRM, defining touchpoint taxonomy, selecting the model, and building the reporting that connects campaigns to pipeline and revenue. The best RevOps teams run multiple models simultaneously and compare them to identify consistent patterns.