Markov Chains and Next Best Action: The Future of Conversion Optimization

Funnel Conversion Attribution (FCA) is about understanding which marketing efforts truly drive conversions at every stage of the funnel. Traditional attribution models often fall short – they typically credit only the first or last touch and offer no guidance on what to do next. Modern marketers are moving beyond these limits with Markov chain models and Next Best Action (NBA) strategies to both analyze and act on attribution insights.

Why Full-Funnel Attribution Matters

In complex B2B funnels, a lot happens between the first touch and the closed deal. Relying on first- or last-touch attribution misses the rich middle. Most legacy attribution tools look only at past marketing touchpoints in isolation and ignore the influence of sales or other teams.

This leaves marketers knowing what happened but not why – or what to do about it. It’s no surprise only about one-third of marketing professionals feel highly confident in their attribution accuracy​.

Funnel Conversion Attribution (FCA) addresses these gaps by providing a complete view of the customer journey. It captures multi-touch influence across the entire funnel, from initial Lead to closed revenue​.

Instead of just showing that Campaign X generated a lead, FCA shows if Campaign X also helped turn that lead into an opportunity or a sale. For the first time, marketers can see the impact of every inbound and outbound effort on each stage of conversion​.

In short, FCA offers full-funnel insight – not only who converted, but how they moved through the funnel and which campaigns helped at each step​.

Key advantages of a full-funnel approach include:

• Holistic credit allocation: Every team’s touchpoints (marketing, SDR, sales) are counted, so nothing is left out.
• Stage-specific visibility: You can identify which channels drive top-of-funnel engagement versus which ones excel at late-stage conversions​.
• Actionable outlook: By analyzing historical patterns, FCA doesn’t just look backward – it provides forward-looking recommendations to improve future pipeline​.

In essence, FCA turns attribution from a reporting exercise into a guide for strategy. To power this, marketers are adopting advanced Markov chain modeling.

Markov Chain Modeling: The Engine Behind Advanced Attribution

Advanced attribution platforms like RevSure build in Markov chain models to move beyond simplistic rules​. A Markov chain model uses AI to analyze all the paths prospects take and the probability of each sequence of events leading to conversion​.

It essentially asks: “What would happen to our conversion rate if a given touchpoint didn’t occur?” – and uses that answer to assign credit fairly​.

“Markov chain model is the most popular algorithmic attribution model. It assigns credit by evaluating relationships between different touchpoints... the model looks at what would happen to the conversion if you removed one touchpoint.”​

This “removal effect” approach gives a data-driven way to value each marketing interaction. By simulating journeys with and without each channel, the model learns each touchpoint’s true impact on conversion likelihood​. The result is a probabilistic attribution that learns from real buyer behavior across both marketing and sales data​.

Unlike a first-touch model that might overcredit an initial ad, or a last-touch model that favors the final sales call, Markov attribution spreads credit based on actual influence. 

In one example, a Markov model attributed roughly 100+ conversions each to six different touchpoints (paid ads, social, email, website, third-party reviews, and follow-up outreach) for a given campaign​. As one analyst noted, “each touchpoint is fairly credited” by the model, reflecting how multiple interactions jointly led to the sale​. This fairness helps marketers trust the data and avoid over-investing in a single flashy channel.

Benefits of Markov-based multi-touch attribution include:

• Optimized spend allocation: By quantifying each channel’s true contribution, marketers can confidently invest more in what works and cut spending on what doesn’t​. This improves ROI without increasing the budget.
• Granular insights: The Markov model provides a deep dive into conversion paths. It accounts for factors like touchpoint order and frequency, giving a nuanced view of how journeys unfold​.
• Personalized funnels: By understanding which sequences of touches resonate with buyers, marketing teams can tailor messaging and timing to match where each customer is in their journey​. For example, if the model shows a webinar → demo → trial path converts best, you can guide more leads down that path.

Overall, Markov chain attribution delivers full-funnel, unbiased insight. It moves marketers beyond gut feel and simple rules to an evidence-based understanding of what drives conversion.

But insight alone isn’t enough. To truly accelerate growth, you need to act on those insights – that’s where Next Best Action comes in.

From Attribution Insights to Next Best Actions

Analyzing past conversion paths is only half the battle. The next step is using that knowledge to proactively guide prospects forward. This is the idea behind the Next Best Action (NBA). Simply put, the next best action is “the most effective step to take with a prospect or account to move them forward in the sales process.”​ It’s based on the prospect’s individual behavior, needs, and stage in the buying journey.

Attribution and NBA go hand in hand. Attribution tells you what has worked – which channels and content influenced conversions.Next Best Action uses that data to suggest what to do next for each lead​.

While many organizations have historically focused on attribution as a way to assign credit, leading teams are now equally focused on NBA to accelerate opportunities.

“Attribution helps evaluate marketing ROI and optimize conversion and revenue strategies. The next best action takes it a step further by focusing on opportunity acceleration and delivering personalized experiences... enabling proactive steps that keep your prospects engaged, moving them through the funnel more efficiently.”​

In practice, that means once you know which touchpoints and sequences drive conversions, you can replicate and reinforce those successful patterns. For example, if your Markov model shows that 50% of leads who attend a webinar and then get a personalized follow-up email convert to opportunities, then the “next best action” for any new webinar attendee is to trigger a tailored follow-up email.

Effective attribution essentially allows you to “optimize the next best action for a customer, keep them engaged, and increase the likelihood of converting.”​

Why Next Best Action is a game-changer:

• Timely engagement: Knowing the next best step ensures you reach out at the right moment (e.g., an immediate follow-up after a key webinar) so no prospect falls through the cracks.
• Personalized touch: NBA is all about relevance. Each action is tailored to the prospect’s recent behavior and stage, providing a more valuable experience and boosting conversion odds.
• Efficient resource use: It helps sales and marketing focus on the right prospects with the right message rather than a one-size-fits-all approach​. This means higher productivity and better conversion rates from the same team effort.
• Pipeline acceleration: By always taking the optimal next step, you reduce idle time and stagnation in the funnel. Prospects move faster from stage to stage when guided by data-driven nudges.
• Improved forecasting: When you consistently execute the best next actions, conversion outcomes become more predictable. This makes planning and forecasting pipeline more accurate over time.

In short, Next Best Action turns insight into impact. It’s the proactive counterpart to attribution’s analytical insight – ensuring that what you learn from the data directly informs what your team does day-to-day.

Bridging Markov Attribution and NBA in Practice

The real power of Funnel Conversion Attribution comes from linking these two elements: using Markov-chain multi-touch insight to drive the next best actions. FCA platforms like RevSure are designed with this union in mind. As RevSure notes, their approach “brings together attribution and funnel management” by not only analyzing touchpoints but also mapping out the best next engagement to keep buyers moving forward​.

Concretely, a modern FCA solution will present marketers with the top conversion paths and the probabilistic contribution of each campaign at each funnel stage. 

Alongside that, it will recommend specific next-best actions for leads or accounts, often prioritized by their likelihood to convert​. For instance, you might see that Lead A is 3× more likely to become an opportunity if they receive a product demo after downloading a whitepaper – prompting your team to arrange that demo. Lead B, on the other hand, might be best nurtured with a case study based on their interest in a particular feature.

RevSure’s platform exemplifies this by providing next-best-action recommendations for each lead in a cohort, informed by attribution data and conversion probabilities​. In other words, the system not only tells you which campaigns worked in the past, but also what to do next for every lead to reproduce that success. Marketing teams can “use attribution and conversion paths to optimize the next best action for a cohort of leads, in order to increase their likelihood to continue converting.”​ 

This transforms attribution from a passive analytics report into an active playbook for pipeline generation.

To illustrate, imagine a conversion path visualization from a Markov model that shows two common journeys:

• Path 1 (High-converting): Paid Ad → Whitepaper Download → Email Drip → Product Demo → Opportunity (5% conversion to opportunity)
• Path 2 (Lower-converting): Paid Ad → Whitepaper Download → No Follow-up → Opportunity (2% conversion to opportunity)

Seeing this, the FCA system flags the “Email Drip → Product Demo” sequence as a key driver in Path 1. The next best action recommendation for any lead who downloaded the whitepaper (but hasn’t demoed) would be: send them the drip email series inviting a product demo. 

By operationalizing these insights, marketers can systematically guide more leads through the high-converting Path 1, lifting overall funnel conversion rates.

Conclusion

Funnel Conversion Attribution powered by Markov chains and augmented with Next Best Action is changing how marketing and sales teams drive growth. Instead of guessing or relying on outdated single-touch metrics, teams get a full-funnel, data-driven view of what works – and a clear plan for what to do next. 

As one RevSure report put it, “Effective attribution allows you to optimize the next best action for a customer, keep them engaged, and increase the likelihood of converting.”​

By marrying deep attribution insight with actionable recommendations, organizations can move beyond reactive measurement to proactive funnel optimization. In practice, adopting FCA with Markov and NBA means your marketing analytics not only score past performance but also coach your team’s next move. The payoff is better-aligned campaigns, higher conversion rates at each stage, and ultimately more revenue.

In the era of AI-driven marketing, knowing which levers to pull is powerful – but knowing when and how to pull them is the real game-changer. Leveraging Markov chains for attribution and next best actions for execution ensures you’re doing both, turning marketing data into marketing success.

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