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The Future of B2B Attribution

The evolving landscape of B2B marketing has rendered traditional attribution methodologies inadequate, creating a disconnect between sales and marketing teams, and hindering actionable insights. A recent study shows that 74% of marketers struggle to accurately attribute revenue to their marketing efforts, while 65% report a significant misalignment between marketing and sales teams due to inconsistent attribution data. This ebook delves into the challenges of traditional attribution, highlights recent advances, and proposes a new comprehensive approach to transform attribution from mere measurement to actionable insights that drive business growth.

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Benchmarking Attribution Maturity Across B2B SaaS

These findings also align with broader industry trends

Key Survey Findings and Actionable Takeaways

Strategic Recommendations Based on Attribution Maturity

mabl Unlocks Full-Funnel Visibility and Marketing ROI with RevSure

Marketing Attribution Capability Scorecard

Frameworks for Execution

Final Thought: Attribution Is a Team Sport

Executive Summary

Challenges with Traditional Attribution

Current models justify past actions without providing clear next steps. They overlook the buyer journey, focus only on marketing campaigns, and ignore team synergies. Despite improvements like multi-touch attribution, gaps remain. Industry leaders demand a comprehensive view of cross-funnel conversions, detailed campaign insights, and simplified, actionable data for quick decisions.

Implementing the Future of Attribution

To address these limitations, it's essential to redefine key dimensions of attribution. Expanding the scope to full-funnel activities, shifting the focus to what maximizes pipeline and revenue, adopting a hybrid of Al-based multi-touch attribution and marketing mix modeling, transitioning to real-time, forward-looking insights, and providing actionable recommendations are all critical steps.
Implementing this new approach involves integrating data across the entire Go-to-Market (GTM) funnel, using predictive Al to identify effective campaigns, combining probabilistic multi-touch attribution with marketing-mix and incremental testing, leveraging near-real-time tracking, and providing prescriptive recommendations on next best actions.

Introduction

In B2B marketing, traditional attribution methodologies often prove inadequate, creating a disconnect between sales and marketing teams and limiting actionable insights.

Research shows that 74% of marketers struggle to attribute revenue to their marketing efforts accurately, and 65% report misalignment between marketing and sales teams due to inconsistent attribution data.

These challenges underscore the critical need for a more robust attribution system that not only measures but also drives actionable insights. This ebook explores the current challenges with traditional attribution, shares market feedback, and presents a new, comprehensive approach to transform attribution from mere measurement to true actionability.

Attribution today is no longer just a function of marketing analytics; it's essential for revenue planning, performance measurement, and cross-functional collaboration. B2B GTM leaders must evolve beyond static models to dynamic, Al-powered engines that can keep pace with digital-first buyer behavior.

Traditional Attribution is NOT Working

There are several critical issues with traditional attribution methodologies that hinder their effectiveness. Firstly, there is a widespread distrust of attribution methodology. Many view these methods as mere tools for justifying past actions rather than providing actionable insights. This perspective diminishes the perceived value of attribution in driving strategic decisions.

Additionally, traditional attribution is often seen as a justification mechanism, which exacerbates the problem of misalignment between sales and marketing teams. This misalignment, referred to as Attribution Wars, revolves around disputes over who should receive credit for conversions. Such conflicts divert focus away from collaborative efforts that could drive better business outcomes.

It is often seen as a justification mechanism, which exacerbates the problem of misalignment between sales and marketing teams.

Traditional Attribution Lacks Actionability

As you can see, our survey data reveals that while the majority of respondents have a reasonable level of confidence in their attribution accuracy, there is a notable portion that does not feel fully confident, suggesting a need for more robust and reliable attribution methods.

The survey also indicates that while most respondents find some success in their marketing attribution, achieving a higher level of efficacy and best-in-class results remains a goal for many. This aligns with the need for more advanced and reliable attribution methodologies to better support strategic objectives.

Methodology Limitations of Traditional Attribution

The limitations of traditional attribution are rooted in both methodological and applicability constraints. These limitations significantly hinder the ability of marketing teams to capture and analyze the full scope of their efforts effectively. Here are the key methodological limitations:

Incomplete Data Capture: Traditional attribution models often fail to capture the complete set of data required to understand the full buyer journey. This incomplete data set leaves gaps in the analysis, leading to less reliable insights.
Limited to Marketing Campaigns: These models typically focus solely on marketing campaigns, ignoring the critical synergies that occur across Marketing, SDR/BDR, and AE campaigns. This narrow focus prevents a comprehensive view of how different teams and efforts contribute to conversions.
Does Not Capture Synergies Across Teams: The inability to capture synergies across Marketing, SDR/BDR, and AE campaigns means that traditional models cannot accurately attribute the collective impact of these integrated efforts. This leads to underestimating the true value of collaborative campaigns.
Cannot Adapt to Hybrid GTM Motions: Traditional attribution models struggle to adapt to the increasingly complex hybrid go-to-market (GTM) motions that combine various sales and marketing tactics. This inflexibility limits their effectiveness in modern, dynamic marketing environments.
Rules-based Attribution Methods: These methods do not effectively capture the complex online and offline buyer journeys. Rules-based approaches can be overly simplistic, failing to account for the nuanced and multifaceted interactions that influence buyer decisions.

Addressing these methodological limitations is essential for developing a more robust and accurate attribution framework that can provide actionable insights and drive better marketing and sales alignment.

As you can see in the chart above, technical complexities and organizational barriers play significant roles in preventing the effective implementation of marketing attribution. Addressing these challenges requires not only the right tools and expertise but also a cultural shift toward prioritizing and understanding the value of attribution.

Applicability Limitations of Traditional Attribution

In addition to methodological limitations, traditional attribution models face several significant applicability constraints that further hinder their effectiveness. These limitations include:

After-the-Fact ROI Reporting: Traditional attribution often involves retrospective analysis, which limits the ability to drive early changes or reallocate resources effectively. By the time insights are gathered, it may be too late to pivot strategies and optimize outcomes.
Disconnected from Day-to-Day Funnel Management: Traditional models are frequently isolated from the daily operations of funnel management. This disconnection means that the insights they provide are not easily integrated into the ongoing management and optimization of marketing and sales activities.
Limited Insights Across Segments, Personas, and Regions: These models often fail to provide detailed insights that span different customer segments, personas, and geographical regions. This lack of granularity restricts the ability to tailor marketing strategies to specific target audiences.
Unable to Account for Dark Funnel Contributions: Traditional attribution methods struggle to account for the contributions of the "dark funnel"-the unseen and often indirect interactions that influence buyer behavior. This gap leaves a significant portion of the buyer journey unquantified and unacknowledged.
Unable to Quantify Contribution of Campaigns to Driving Velocities and Conversions: These models lack the ability to accurately measure how individual campaigns contribute to the acceleration of conversions and the overall velocity of leads through the funnel. This limitation makes it difficult to understand which campaigns are truly effective in driving business results.

Addressing these applicability limitations is crucial for developing an attribution framework that provides comprehensive, actionable insights and supports the continuous optimization of marketing and sales strategies.

Recent Advances in Attribution: Progress, But Not Enough

Recent advancements in attribution methodologies have certainly provided improvements, but they are not sufficient to address all the challenges faced by modern B2B marketing teams. These advancements include:

Multi-touch Attribution

Models such as U-shaped and W-shaped attribution have helped provide a more nuanced understanding of the buyer journey by recognizing multiple touchpoints that contribute to conversions. However, while these models offer a more detailed perspective than single-touch attribution, they still fall short of capturing the full complexity of the buyer journey.

Measurement to Pipeline and Closed Won

Moving beyond just measuring leads and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), modern attribution now extends to measuring contributions to the pipeline and closed-won deals. This approach provides a clearer link between marketing efforts and actual sales outcomes, enhancing the accountability of marketing activities. Despite this, there are still gaps in connecting these measurements to actionable insights that can drive continuous improvement.

Granularity Around Content/Assets

Recent methods have introduced greater granularity in measuring the impact of specific content and assets. This granularity helps in understanding which pieces of content or assets are driving engagement and conversions. However, while this detailed analysis is valuable, it is not always integrated effectively into a holistic attribution model that considers the entire funnel and all touchpoints.

Despite these advancements, significant gaps remain in providing comprehensive, actionable insights that can drive strategic decision-making and optimization across marketing and sales activities. A more integrated and advanced approach is needed to truly transform attribution from mere measurement to actionability.

Final Thought: Attribution Is a Team Sport

Marketing doesn't own attribution alone-Sales, RevOps, Product, and even Finance depend on it. Organizations that treat attribution as a cross-functional discipline stand to gain clarity, agility, and competitive advantage. It's not just about credit. It's about accountability and acceleration. In the next evolution of B2B go-to-market, attribution isn't just a dashboard; it's your GTM engine.