What are attribution reports? Definition, best practices and tools

For any business, maintaining effective sales and marketing efforts is essential for growth, yet it can be hard to understand what drives success across the customer journey.

Attribution reports help you pinpoint exactly what impacts your sales and conversions along the way.

In this article, you’ll learn what attribution reports are and different models you can use to measure performance. We’ll also share tips and tools to help you gather valuable insights.

What is an attribution report (and what can it teach you)?

An attribution report collects data from customer interactions with your business to help sales and marketing teams understand when and why prospects convert into leads and sales. This data enables you to provide a better user experience and improve conversion rates.

Here’s how an attribution report might look with Pipedrive’s Ruler Analytics integration:

Attribution reporting gives you a bird’s eye view of the customer journey phases, from the first time prospects visit your website to when they buy your product or service. With this insight, you can see people’s actions and assign credit to your marketing efforts.

Attribution reports help you answer questions like:

• Which channels do customers use to find you?

• Which channels get the most engagement or drive the most revenue?

• Which campaigns drive conversions (e.g., newsletter sign-ups or purchases)?

• Which channels are underperforming?

• What content or ads get the most interaction?

• In which stage of the journey do customers consume different types of content?

• What product features or value do customers look for?

If you know which channels, activities and campaigns get the best results, you can tailor marketing and sales tactics to create a sales funnel that engages people and improves your bottom line.

For example, you advertise products through Google Ads, Facebook ads and your email list. However, you’re unsure which channel most customers find you on and which gets the most sales.

Attribution reporting tells you that Google Ads drive a lot of traffic but people tend not to buy. Facebook ads drive less traffic but more sales than Google Ads. The majority of sales come from your email list.

With this insight, you can move your Google Ads budget to Facebook to reach more people with targeted ads. You can also focus on growing your email list and investing more in creating personalized offers for subscribers.

There are numerous ways to collect and analyze customer data and a wide range of tools to automate marketing and sales reporting. To ensure credit goes to the right channel or campaign, attribution reports use attribution models.

This article will now take a closer look at what these models are and how they’re used.

Types of attribution models for measuring conversions

Attribution reports help you understand how your marketing initiatives contribute to conversions, but not all channels or tactics have the same impact on conversions.

To avoid sorting through data from numerous sources, marketers use attribution models to weigh data points that influence customer behavior and assign credit where it’s due.

For example, if your email marketing content drives the most sales, you might be tempted to give it all the credit for a sale. However, if customers join your list through a link on LinkedIn, you might assign credit there too. Attribution models enable you to track both sources over time to help you prioritize budget and resources. Models also ensure you see all channels that contribute to the customer journey.

Here are some of the most common attribution models.

First-touch marketing attribution

First-touch attribution gives full credit to the first interaction in the customer journey.

For example, before buying, a customer first visits your website by clicking through to a blog post from Google Search results. In a first-touch attribution report, that click gets the credit for the sale.

First-touch attribution is a simple model to use and understand. However, it only measures what happens at the start and doesn’t offer insight into the different touchpoints later in the sales funnel (e.g., downloading an ebook or booking a sales demo).

Last-touch marketing attribution

Last-touch attribution gives full credit to the last interaction in the customer journey.

For example, a customer’s last click before buying is a link in an email that takes them to your landing page. That email gets the credit for the sale in a last-touch attribution report.

Like first-touch, last-touch is easy to use. It helps you understand which channel inspired the customer to take action. However, it overlooks earlier potential contributions, such as a link to your newsletter on Facebook or a blog post that brought your brand to the customer’s attention in the first place.

Linear marketing attribution

Linear attribution finds the important interactions relevant to a purchase and gives equal credit to each.

For example, before buying, a customer’s interactions with your business might look like this:

1. Clicks blog post link on LinkedIn

2. Views your newsletter landing page

3. Signs up to your newsletter

4. Clicks demo link in marketing email

5. Watches demo

6. Replies to email from sales rep

7. Meets with salesperson

In a linear attribution report, each touchpoint is as valued as the next. It’s a good way to find the key events in the customer journey and filter out irrelevant interactions.

Time-decay marketing attribution

Time-decay attribution gives more credit to interactions that happen closest to a conversion. The longer a customer takes to convert, the more older touchpoints decay.

For example, if a meeting is the last interaction before a sale, that gets the most credit in a time-decay attribution report. The interaction before that (e.g., an email from a sales rep) gets the next most credit and so on, right back to the first interaction.

Time-decay is a good way to see which interactions are influential in moving a customer toward buying, but it might overlook top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) tactics that happen a long time before conversion.

U-shaped marketing attribution

U-shaped attribution – also called position-based attribution – gives the most credit to the first and last interactions in the customer journey.

For example, if a customer’s first interaction with your business is clicking a link on social media and the last is a meeting, U-shaped attribution reports assign 40% credit to both touchpoints.

The remaining 20% is split between the rest (e.g., signing up for your newsletter, watching a demo, etc.)

This model is a good way to understand the influences of different touchpoints in a long and complex sales process. It assumes that the first and last touchpoints are the most important – which might not always be true.

W-shaped marketing attribution

W-shaped attribution gives equal credit to the first, last and middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) interactions in the customer journey.

Using the same example interactions, a social link click and a meeting both get 30% credit as the first and last touchpoints in a W-shaped attribution report. 30% credit also goes to a lead creation touchpoint (e.g., signing up for your newsletter). The remaining 10% is split between other touchpoints.

This model highlights three of the most important touchpoints for moving customers down the sales funnel. Understanding them can help you tailor your marketing efforts to drive customers toward these interactions.

How to choose the right attribution model for your reports

The right model for your attribution reports depends on your customer journey and what you’re trying to find out.

This example by Customer Marketing Alliance shows some of the interactions a customer might make on the way to buying your product or service and beyond:

If a customer only interacts with you a few times between becoming aware they have a problem and purchasing, a single-source attribution model might work best for you.

A multi-source model will help you account for and credit different interactions if the customer journey lasts months and has multiple touchpoints.

Before choosing a model, figure out what you want to learn. Here are some questions to ask:

• What does our customer journey look like and how long does our sales cycle run?

• How do customers learn about us?

• Why do customers drop out of our sales funnel?

• What leads customers to purchase?

• What keeps customers loyal and coming back?

Here’s the best use case for each attribution model:

6 attribution report best practices

When you know which attribution model matches your needs, you can start building a clear picture of your different touchpoints.

Here are six tips to get the most out of your attribution reports.

1. Choose key performance indicators that match your overall goals

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measurements that help you track the success of your marketing in attribution reports.

Each KPI should align with your sales and marketing objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, tracking revenue attribution can help you see which channels are bringing in money and which are underperforming.

Here are some common KPIs that will help you measure marketing success in your attribution reporting:

When you’re clear on what KPIs to track, use industry benchmarks or historical data to see how your marketing and sales performance measures up. From there, you can set achievable goals to keep improving.

2. Set up tracking systems to monitor interactions

Once you know which metrics to monitor, the next step is to track engaged channels.

Urchin Tracking Modules (UTMs) or pixels are snippets of code that connect your marketing channels with analytics platforms so you can collect and track activity data for attribution reports. You can use UTMs to monitor specific actions like:

• Website visits

• Email open rate

• Link clicks

• Web form submissions

• Purchases

• Downloads

• Social media interactions

For example, Pipedrive’s Web Visitors feature connects to your website to identify how people found it, what content they engaged with and how long they stayed.

You can use this data to understand what content resonates with visitors and create more of the same.

3. Align sales and marketing to see the full customer journey

To understand how sales and marketing efforts contribute to sales or conversions, ensure attribution integrates data from all channels across the customer journey.

A single comprehensive view of your customer journey helps sales teams and marketers determine which channels or campaigns bring in leads and which offer the best ROI.

It also helps you spot misalignment in buyer personas and KPIs you can fix to improve lead quality and conversions.

For example, if your marketing team’s ideal customer differs from who your sales team is prospecting, the leads marketing generates might be of lower quality and difficult to convert.

Aligning teams and data helps you create marketing strategies to target the right people with the right content, from first interaction to sale and beyond.

4. Set the right attribution window for your campaign objective

An attribution window – also called a conversion window – is the timeframe between a person interacting with your content (e.g., viewing a landing page) and completing a desired action. Using windows helps you understand if a touchpoint led to a conversion.

For instance, if you set a three-day conversion window for an email sign-up, interactions are only linked to a conversion if they occur within three days. Anything outside of that is irrelevant. This stops old interactions from skewing data.

Set attribution windows for each type of conversion – typically, the more conversion-driven the content, the shorter the window.

If you’re tracking a display ad, you might set a shorter window since ads are less likely to result in conversions after more than a few days. If you’re tracking the impact of a blog post, a longer window will give you more data to measure its effectiveness.

You can also set attribution windows according to your sales cycle to get a full view of your marketing and sales efforts. The longer the cycle, the more data you’ll need. For example, if you have a three-month cycle you might want to look at six months of data to spot patterns in customer behavior.

If you’re unsure what to analyze, look at:

• Which channels and content generate the most leads

• Which pages get the most views before a conversion

Marketing activities that see high levels of engagement are often key touchpoints in the customer journey.

5. Visualize attribution data to make it easy to understand

Use graphs, charts and other visuals to make attribution report data easy to digest.

Your CRM or other attribution software will likely include visuals to automate chart design for you. For example, Pipedrive’s conversion reports use a bar chart to show email open rates.

With this information, marketers can quickly see the success of a campaign.

Choose a visualization that best represents your data to help viewers understand what it’s telling them. For instance, use pie charts to show proportions, bar charts to compare categories and line charts to illustrate trends.

Here are some other best practices for designing visuals:

• Focus on relevant data

• Clearly label axes

• Provide descriptive titles

• Add context to create a narrative for your data

• Highlight important data points

Following these tips will help you communicate attribution data effectively, making information easier to act on.

6. Use attribution report insights to improve sales and marketing campaigns

When you have a clear picture of your marketing efforts, use it to understand what works and spot areas that show a disconnect between your goals and your strategy.

Let’s say one of your campaigns is underperforming. Research new trends or tactics and experiment with different ways to engage your audience. If a particular channel drives conversions, consider investing more resources to grow it further.

It’s also important that your attribution reports never stand still. Periodically review and adjust your reports to maintain accurate data.

If your chosen attribution model no longer yields good conversion rates, test a new model to gain a different view of your customer journey.

5 tools to automate attribution reporting and gather meaningful insights

Attribution reporting tools automate the process of discovering your most profitable channels and campaigns.

Here are five attribution reporting tools to help you gather accurate insights.

1. Pipedrive

Pipedrive’s CRM integrates your customer data and sales and marketing apps in one tool so you can align teams and track processes across the customer journey.

Pipedrive’s Insights feature offers interactive dashboards and customizable reports to turn your most important attribution metrics into easy-to-understand charts, graphs and tables. Use them to track essential metrics, monitor revenue and uncover winning email marketing and sales strategies.

Pipedrive also connects to attribution reporting tools to add marketing attribution to your deals.

2. Ruler Analytics

Ruler Analytics is a multi-source attribution tool that tracks the entire buyer journey to provide valuable insights into your marketing ROI.

Ruler tracks every anonymous website visitor as well as conversions from phone calls and live chat.

When a lead converts to a sale, the tool automatically matches their details to different touchpoints so users can see which channels influence customers.

Ruler’s marketing mix modeling uses machine learning to calculate the impact of touchpoints, such as ad impressions and radio promotions, without click data. It’s an effective way to analyze offline efforts in an omnichannel conversion path.

Ruler Analytics integrates seamlessly with Pipedrive and other marketing tools to give you a comprehensive view of your sales and marketing activities.

3. AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer is an attribution reporting tool for tracking and attributing mobile app conversions to touchpoints across your digital marketing channels.

Users can connect marketing apps and access several attribution methods, including multi-source models and retargeting attribution, to visualize insights in customizable reports.

AppsFlyer also lets you track engagement and activity in real time to gather conversion data on short-term advertising campaigns.

The vast range of features does mean the platform has a steep learning curve. Some users may need the help of the AppsFlyer learning portal and help center to get the best experience.

4. Dreamdata

Dreamdata is an attribution platform for B2B marketers who want actionable insights into revenue-generating activities.

Dreamdata lets users connect marketing and sales tools through integrations with Pipedrive, Mailchimp, Microsoft Dynamics and more, pulling in data to give you a complete view of your customer journey.

Like Ruler Analytics, Dreamdata’s standout feature is its ability to use machine learning-based attribution to assign accurate credit to every touchpoint. The feature provides rich insights into marketing efforts at the account level to see what helps specific buyers convert.

The comprehensive range of features makes Dreamdata a better option for seasoned marketers.

5. Oktopost

Oktopost is a social media monitoring and analysis tool with robust attribution features.

It uses AI-powered algorithms to track the impact of social media marketing on conversions. Attribution reports let users track leads back to their first touchpoint and provide insights on wider social campaigns.

Additionally, users can connect the tool with Google Analytics to understand how social content impacts website activity.

Oktopost also suggests ways to improve visibility and engagement, including offering personalized content curation based on the user’s audience. Alongside attribution, this functionality can be useful to increase marketing effectiveness.

Final thoughts

Attribution reports take the guesswork out of your sales and marketing decisions by giving you a clear, data-driven view of important touchpoints in your customers’ journey.

Use attribution reporting models and tools to pinpoint effective and underperforming channels, so you can run marketing campaigns that drive leads, close deals and maximize your ROI.