Lead Attribution 101: What's Working?

Attribution is the most common problem in marketing... from $500M businesses to pre-revenue startups.

I've talked to over 150 business owners in the last 12 months about their marketing programs. Almost every single one of them cites understanding where leads are coming from as a top priority.

Yet, actually figuring it out continues to be a challenge.

Let's break down the most common types of attribution and how you can use them to understand what's working in your business.

First-Touch Attribution

Let's say you want to know how a lead heard about you in the first place.

Not how they converted or what made them decide to give you a call.

How did they discover you?

That's the idea behind first-touch attribution.

Essentially, you track the first interaction you have with a prospect. Then if they convert within a certain period you can associate that lead with the initial campaign.

Here's an example:

1. A lead is searching for solutions to the problem you solve
2. They see an ad from your company
3. They click the ad
4. They read about your product/service and decide to come back later
5. Two weeks later they search for your brand name on Google
6. They click on the homepage and fill out a form

First-touch attribution would read They click the ad as the influential event. The one that caused them to discover your business.

For this to be accurate there has to be a time limit where the ad click is still considered relevant. The industry standard is 30 days.

Last-Touch Attribution

Let's say you only want to know what activities are leading to conversion events.

Not how they discovered you.

How did they come to us when they converted?

This would be last-touch attribution, and it's the most common form of attribution that almost all businesses use by default.

Platforms like Google Analytics & CRMs are naturally built for last-touch attribution.

This can be great for measuring conversion events but doesn't necessarily give you a full picture of the customer journey.

Let's look at the same example as the last section:

1. A lead is searching for solutions to the problem you solve
2. They see an ad from your company
3. They click the ad
4. They read about your product/service and decide to come back later
5. Two weeks later they search for your brand name on Google
6. They click on the homepage and fill out a form

Last-touch attribution would measure They click on the homepage and fill out a form as the attributable event. ie "Organic Search" While this is technically true, it can lead to incorrect assumptions about channel contributions to lead flow.

NOTE

If you plan to use first-touch or last-touch attribution. I recommend you implement both. By measuring both you can have a good idea of both the discovery event & the conversion event.

Self Attribution

The most accurate form of attribution is self-attribution.

This means that you ask your customer directly:

How did you hear about us?

Their answer is often full of nuance or at least an accurate depiction of why they believe they converted.

Example:

1. Lead hears you on a podcast they regularly listen to
2. They scroll through your social account for 10 minutes
3. They search for your name & click an ad
4. They scroll around your website
5. A week later they see a post you make on social
6. They search your name again & click your homepage
7. They fill out a form

First-Touch Attribution: "Paid Search"

Last-Touch Attribution: "Google Search"

Self Attribution: "I saw you on [podcast name] last week and thought it was worth reaching out"

To track self attribution simply add a How did you hear about us? field to your forms, and train your sales team to ask the prospect anytime they talk to them for the first time.

The more you know about your leads, the better marketing you'll do.