How can you accurately attribute revenue to multiple touchpoints?

1 What is revenue attribution?

Revenue attribution is the process of tracking and assigning a value to each touchpoint that contributes to a sale. A touchpoint is any interaction that a prospect has with your brand, such as a website visit, an email click, a social media post, a webinar, a phone call, a demo, or a referral. By attributing revenue to each touchpoint, you can understand how your marketing and sales efforts are performing, optimize your budget and resources, and improve your strategy and decision-making.

3 How to choose a revenue attribution model?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for revenue attribution. Different models have different advantages and disadvantages, depending on your business goals, data availability, and analytical capabilities. However, you can broadly categorize revenue attribution models into two types: single-touch and multi-touch.

Single-touch models assign all the credit to one touchpoint, either the first or the last one. These models are simple and easy to implement, but they ignore the role of other touchpoints in the sales process. For example, if you use the first-touch model, you may overestimate the impact of your top-of-funnel marketing campaigns, while neglecting the influence of your sales activities and customer referrals.

Multi-touch models distribute the credit among multiple touchpoints, based on different rules or weights. These models are more complex and accurate, but they require more data and analysis. For example, if you use the linear model, you assign equal credit to each touchpoint, regardless of its position or importance. If you use the U-shaped model, you assign more credit to the first and last touchpoints, while splitting the remaining credit among the middle ones.

The best way to choose a revenue attribution model is to consider your business objectives, data quality, and analytical resources, and test different models to see which one provides the most relevant and actionable insights.

4 How to implement a revenue attribution model?

Implementing a revenue attribution model requires a few steps, such as defining your sales cycle and stages, and mapping out the typical buyer's journey for your target audience. Additionally, you must identify and track all the touchpoints that prospects encounter along the way, using tools such as CRM, marketing automation, web analytics, and call tracking. It is also necessary to choose a revenue attribution model that aligns with your business goals and data availability, and apply it to your touchpoint data. After analyzing and reporting the results with metrics such as revenue per channel, cost per acquisition, return on investment, and customer lifetime value, you should evaluate and optimize your revenue attribution model based on your feedback, performance, and changes in your market and customer behavior.

5 What are some best practices for revenue attribution?

Revenue attribution is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and improvement. To get the most out of your efforts, it's important to align your marketing and sales teams around common definitions, goals, and metrics. Additionally, use a consistent and reliable data source, experiment with different revenue attribution models, segment data by criteria such as industry or product, and use insights to optimize your strategies, tactics, and budgets. Revenue attribution can help you gain a deeper understanding of customer journeys, optimize resource allocation, and increase conversion and revenue rates.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?