Breaking Down Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA): A Better Approach to B2B Marketing

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In today’s newsletter, we’re tackling the key attribution models used in B2B marketing and how they’re often failing to deliver accurate insights. Multi-Touch Attribution is flawed, whether you want to admit it or not.

Sam O'Brien ??♂? touched on this in last week's episode of the Funky Marketing podcast, explaining how Dealfront and Leadfeeder are helping marketers and sales teams discover the right leads and channels.

The problem is that when tracking leads for big companies, like IKEA, it often looks like one specific channel (say Google) gets all the credit for closing the deal. But in reality, there are multiple touchpoints and channels involved – someone from LinkedIn, another person from Google Ads, maybe even different

As Sam said, “It's very rarely that one person came on through one channel and bought the product... it’s normally multiple people coming on through multiple channels.”

Yet, the attribution model only credits the final interaction, which doesn’t reflect the full picture.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Charlie de Thibault , who shared eye-opening thoughts on the broken state of Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and the shortcomings of Marketing Mix Attribution (MMA).

We also explored how self-reported attribution can bring much-needed clarity to your marketing efforts.

Make sure to check out the full episode with Charlie below:

Or check Apple and Spotify, if you prefer to consume content on those platforms.

Let’s dive into some key takeaways:

Introduction to the Attribution Challenge

Let's kick the conversation off by diving into how marketers are often misled by the data they receive from attribution models. attribution, especially in B2B, doesn’t always work the way we expect it to.

There’s a fundamental issue with how Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) tools present the data. These tools tend to overemphasize the importance of later touchpoints like paid ads and retargeting.

In many cases, self-reported attribution is much closer to the truth. It’s a simple process of asking, “How did you hear about us?” and the answers can reveal a lot about the customer journey that MTA tools fail to capture.

Self-Reported Attribution: A Real Example

While self-reported attribution isn’t always perfect on an individual basis, when you look at it on a larger scale, it becomes far more reliable. Charlie de Thibault illustrated this with an example from his own experience:

Simple self-reported forms can provide the qualitative data needed to fill the gaps left by MTA.

Leveraging Self-Reported Attribution for Deeper Insights

When it comes to self-reported attribution, I always recommend going beyond the standard “How did you hear about us?” question. One approach I use is adding an additional question: “Why do you want to work with us?” This simple yet powerful question provides deeper insights into the motivations and priorities of your prospects. It goes beyond surface-level answers and helps marketers understand the customer’s intent more clearly. ~ Nemanja Zivkovic

By incorporating these types of questions into the attribution process, we gain a more qualitative understanding of what’s driving leads to engage with us. This can be crucial for shaping messaging and improving conversion rates, particularly when aligned with sales.

I also create Slack channels where team members from the C-level down to marketing can see these conversions as they come in. It’s always motivating for the team to celebrate when a lead says something like, “I read your article and it brought me here.” It’s a great way to not only measure success but also celebrate the wins along the way. ~ Nemanja Zivkovic

The Problem with Cannibalizing Traffic

Let's tackle a bit the cannibalization, particularly around branded search campaigns. We've seen companies run search campaigns that, at first glance, seem incredibly successful with low cost-per-lead metrics. However, upon further inspection, they realized these campaigns were cannibalizing organic traffic.

In other words, they were paying for leads they would have gotten for free anyway.

A lot of the conversation centered on this misunderstanding, especially with Google’s Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. PMax often looks great on the surface, but when you dig deeper, you see it’s just targeting high-performing branded keywords that would have driven traffic regardless of the paid campaign.

Testing Branded Search: Are You Paying for What You Already Have?

Make sure you test your branded search campaigns. Companies should conduct pre/post-tests to see if their branded search campaigns are actually driving incremental revenue or just cannibalizing existing traffic.

Here’s how it works: you turn off your branded search ads for a period of time and monitor your traffic and conversions. If there’s no significant drop-off, it’s a sign that your paid ads weren’t really adding value—they were simply capturing traffic that would have come through organically.

This suggestion is simple but can save companies millions in ad spend by ensuring that their budget is being used to drive new leads, not duplicate existing ones.

Understanding Incremental Lift

Incremental lift can be misunderstood in many marketing campaigns. Sometimes, marketers see increases in certain metrics and assume it's a direct result of their ad campaigns. However, as we discussed, this isn’t always the case.

A company thought they were driving massive incremental lift through Facebook ads, but when they did a deep dive, it turned out that a large portion of the traffic was actually being driven by organic content. This is another reason why self-reported attribution is so critical—it helps companies differentiate between actual incremental gains and traffic they would have had anyway. ~ Charlie de Thibault

The Importance of Recognizing Complex Buyer Journeys

Let's discuss the complexity of today’s B2B buyer journey. Buyers aren’t just clicking on one ad and converting anymore. They’re interacting with multiple touchpoints—across social media, communities, and websites—before ever contacting a sales team.

In this landscape, Multi-Touch Attribution only captures part of the picture. It tracks the final touchpoints, like a click on a Google ad or a retargeting banner, but it doesn’t account for all the touchpoints that happen earlier in the buyer journey.

Aligning Sales and Marketing: The Attribution Disconnect

Finally, we mustn't forget how sales and marketing teams often end up misaligned because of attribution data. MTA can give marketing credit for leads that aren’t sales-ready, causing tension between the two teams.

It's no longer enough to work in silos—both teams need to have shared targets and visibility into the same data.

But by using self-reported attribution and gathering insights directly from the customers, sales, and marketing can work together to better understand the true source of leads and focus on what’s actually driving revenue.

I think we've come to this position now where the information is there. And if sales and marketing can agree on the targets to start with, then the rest of the process is actually a lot easier. We've agreed like: this is the profile of the person we're looking for, and we've identified a list of people showing interest. Let's focus on them. It may not be the most attractive logo we want on the website, but ultimately, we all want to close the right business. ~ Charlie de Thibault

When both teams align on target accounts and messaging, it not only increases efficiency but also leads to higher retention rates and faster sales cycles. These shared goals eliminate the friction of misaligned expectations and create a more seamless experience for both internal teams and customers.

Branding Over Outbound Tactics

And what about outbound tactics? They are no longer as effective as they used to be. With the modern buyer journey changing, focusing on building a strong brand has become more important than targeting leads through outbound calls or traditional approaches.

The Shift in Consumer Behavior

As you can see, there has been an evolution of online consumer behavior. In 2010, for example, buyers primarily relied on Google search, with most of the clicks happening on the first three links. Today, with social media, the buyer journey has become longer and more self-directed, and buyers are much more informed before engaging with a sales team.

The Future of Attribution in B2B

To conclude: Multi-Touch Attribution has its place, but it’s not the complete answer—especially for B2B companies with long sales cycles and complex buyer journeys.

Self-reported attribution, when used alongside other models and thorough testing, can give a far clearer picture of what’s driving conversions and where to focus marketing efforts.

If you found this conversation helpful, please share it with your network. Your support helps spread these insights further, and I’d love to hear what you think! Don’t forget to tune into the next episode of Funky Marketing for more B2B marketing wisdom.

Stay funky, and keep pushing the boundaries!