Setting Up Attribution Models for Digital Marketing

Here's how you can use the Page View API to build a custom marketing attribution model in HubSpot. One of my clients reached out to me asking to build their own attribution model. The out of the box tools were missing key interactions like branded search and Capterra. They also wanted to know more about the type of leads they were getting. Like: Close rate, deal velocity, and average sales price. I used the Page View API to pull the contacts associated with the company of a deal. Next, I pulled all interactions and engagements before the close date. Finally, I put them into specific boxes based on their interaction position and referrer. I stored these on the deal as a "Marketing Touchpoint" property. This allowed them to see how different channels at different stages in the funnel influenced revenue, close rate, and deal velocity. By using Scatter Graphs, I was able to create bubble charts that show an X axis of count of deals, Y Axis of the metric I was interested in, and Size for Revenue. By the end of the process, we were able to discern that tradeshows didn't drive much revenue at a particularly fast rate while traditional demand generation methods like Google Organic and Email Marketing had the biggest impact on revenue driven with the lowest sales cycle. This allowed them to readjust their investments so that they matched was working for their organization.

The attribution wars burned time and budget for years. Every platform pushed a different model, last-click, first-click, position-based and marketers were stuck trying to explain which version of truth was right. ➞ But here’s the reality: ↳ Attribution answers the past. Contribution guides the future. ↳ If you’re still arguing about which channel gets the credit, you’re missing the point. ➞ Contribution modeling asks a better question: ↳ What actually moved this customer forward and how much? ↳ For clients focused on revenue growth, I’ve started blending models instead of picking sides. ➡️ Here’s how: 1. Hybrid Attribution Models: I blend Time Decay + Position-Based. Why? ↳ Position-based shows early/mid influence ↳ Time decay values closer-to-conversion touchpoints ↳ Together, they mirror real human behavior. 2. Funnel Decay Scoring: ↳ Using Looker Studio, I model decay rates across the funnel stages. ↳ If an upper-funnel campaign drops off sharply in mid-funnel, we flag misalignment. ↳ Bonus: Custom blend fields visualize contribution not just clicks. 3. Attribution vs Impact Dashboards: ↳ I separate who assisted from who influenced. ↳ This shift helps CMOs stop defending spend and start directing it better. ↳ Example: Meta might assist often, but the decisive moment may belong to a webinar or email. As a one-man analytics partner, I’m not here to show prettier charts. I’m here to simplify signal vs noise. → Attribution is about ego. → Contribution is about growth. ➞ Which area gets misunderstood most on your team? A) Acquisition spend B) Nurture budget C) Retargeting efforts

Let's talk HubSpot attribution. I've been surprised to see how many partners get this wrong. The number of times I'm asking to build attribution reporting for clients only to discover poor integrations and setup that prevent us from doing so is high at this point. Here is what I see regularly: 📞 APIs set up without passing the Hubspotutk cookie- if you're using an API and not HubSpot forms, necessary for many organizations, it's critical this cookie is passed. Otherwise HubSpot will not populate Original Traffic Source, Latest Traffic Source, Original Traffic Source Drilldown 1 & 2, Latest Traffic Source Drilldown 1 & 2... and essentially the majority of fields in the Web Analytics History section of a Contact record. Let me be clear: UTMs do NOT replace the cookie and are NOT interchangeable. We track both, as there are instances where one can track without the other, but they are NOT the same value and don't populate the same data. Which leads me to... 🔢 UTM data setup and tracking with GTM- Simply passing through UTM data into hidden fields with an API pass or form submission isn't enough. In GTM, you need to set up your UTMs to persist, or with every page change you will lose your UTM data immediately and the data will show as direct instead. If you want to know the UTM data and source from their first page visit, this is critical to getting that data accurate. AND if part or all of your site is SPA (Single Page Application), you need to change UTM data from tracking page changes to history changes since those sites don't have page changes function normally. 📈 Understanding attribution is still messy- even with tracking this as accurately as possible, you will have messy data. Users returning on different devices (more common depending on industry), visitors using cookie or ad blockers (also more common depending on industry), and cookie banners on your site (which allow rejecting cookies more often) can all make your data more messy. Measuring marketing success has to be big picture and look holistically today, but missing out on the data we CAN gather is merely an issue of poor knowledge and implementation. Setting orgs up for success to gather this critical information in understanding marketing campaign efficacy is the foundation all your future marketing will rest on. If an agency doesn't understand what data this populates and doesn't prioritize this data, you need to evaluate how well they understand your needs. #marketingattribution #hubspot #marketinganalytics

You can ABSOLUTELY build fully custom multi-touch attribution in HubSpot! Here's how it works ⬇ You need to build at least: - 3 custom objects (Parent Campaigns, Child Campaigns, Campaign Engagements) - 14 workflows - 50 custom properties 1. Create a parent campaign and select your distribution channels. 2. A workflow will create a child campaign for each distribution channel and auto-generate a tracking link for you to use 4. Any time a contact engages with an asset associated with a campaign, a workflow will create a Campaign Engagement record and associate the contact to the Parent and Child campaigns 5. When a deal is created, it is associated to all campaigns and engagements associated with contacts on the deal. 6. Calculation properties quantify the influenced and directly attributed revenue and if you put in the costs of the campaign, will calculate an ROI. So yes, this is totally possible for you to build. The real question is, SHOULD you build it? For most companies, this level of attribution is overkill. - You have to have extreme diligence in using tracking links to see value - It's never going to capture EVERY touch point, because that's impossible - It's complex to set up and maintain, requiring full-time Marketing Ops resources 📍 Attribution is a compass, not Google Maps. It's great for giving you a directional indicator of what is working and what isn't. But if you expect it to give you perfect directions for your marketing strategy, you're going to get lost. Instead of building a complex multi-touch system in HubSpot, here's what I would recommend: If you are a small marketing team with no Ops support: - Properly configure out-of-the-box attribution reports using default Original Source and Latest Source properties and drill-downs - Capture self-attribution by adding "How did you hear about us?" to your bottom-of-funnel forms If you have a medium-sized marketing team with some Ops support or resources with the capacity to manage attribution: - Do all of the above AND - Create custom source properties and drill-downs and use automation to set them based on a combination of default source property data and self-attribution data (This is what I do BTW) If you have significant Ops support AND you run a lot of ads: - Do all of the above AND - Create a UTM data structure and use tracking links to capture First Touch and Last Touch attribution More complex ≠ better #marketingattribution #hubspottipsandtricks #marketingoperations