Attribution

Attribution is how you assign credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that led to it. Because buyers rarely convert on their first visit, the model you choose — who gets the credit — dramatically changes how each channel looks.

Know the model behind every report you read. Last-click attribution hands all the credit to the final interaction and systematically undervalues SEO, which often does the early educating work and then gets no credit when the buyer returns via branded search or direct. Look at assisted conversions and first-touch data to see organic’s real contribution, and agree the model with stakeholders before you report, not after.

In long B2B cycles, attribution is as much politics as math — the model you choose decides which team looks good and gets budget. Senior practitioners push for multi-touch or data-driven attribution, supplement it with incrementality thinking (what would have happened without this channel?), and pair imperfect models with branded-search lift and cohort analysis. The goal is to stop SEO from being robbed of credit it earned upstream.