What is marketing attribution?

Once upon a time, 10+ years ago, marketers didn’t have the foggiest which campaigns were bringing in sales. Actually – that’s a bit harsh. They had a vague idea.

So what’s changed? A couple of things had a big effect on Marketing departments. They began elevating into a strategic function within organisations and were treated less like sales support. Their shift to the Board meant they became accountable for their expenditure and scrutinised for ROI. Marketing attribution still means the same thing: measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts. However, despite having more audience and performance data than ever before, many marketers still struggle to understand how attribution fits into their overall strategy. Many marketers still struggle to understand how attribution protects budgets and helps create relevant customer experiences.

But it’s not all confusion. 72% of marketers and agencies say that attribution enables better budget allocation across channels, and better returns. So, getting it right in your organisation saves you £s. Ultimately, if you can safeguard your budget to justify an increase the next year, you really need to understand which channels are bringing in ROI.

Other reasons to embrace attribution are:

• Justifying digital and offline spend
• Create more effective media based on true value toward conversion
• Understanding funnel and sales cycle length to plan campaigns
• Correctly determining affiliate payments

The challenge for the modern-day marketer

Why is attribution so complicated then? Surely understanding the influence that a touchpoint, or a combination of touchpoints, has on the customer’s decision to buy, means marketers can make necessary adjustments to campaigns? Yes – but there are a few things to note that make the process a little less straightforward:

#1 The buying process isn’t linear

It’s more like a big bowl of spaghetti, with a tangled chaos of interactions occurring across multiple channels and devices, and sometimes over a long period of time.

#2 People are more informed and self-serve

With vast amounts of information at their fingertips, consumers know around 85% about the product or service before they contact you about it. During their purchasing journey, a typical buyer will consume around six pieces of information that could include an advert, a product description, a video, a demo, customer reviews, price comparison, and the competition’s product.

#3 Some channels are harder to track than others

Online channels are easy to track but there is so much information, it’s possible to get overwhelmed and not make sense of it all. The sheer volume of online channel data has overshadowed offline channels, simply because they are easier to track, not because they aren’t relevant. Marketers often struggle to track offline channels, so some overlook their contribution. But offline could be the main revenue channels for some organisations, so it’s important to find a way to track them.

#4 What do you believe?

With so many online analytics channels and tools out there, and some mediums coming under scrutiny for embellishing the truth behind them, and inconsistencies between platforms when comparing data, it’s difficult to know what data to trust.

This means that marketers are looking for a nice, comprehensive, accurate way of measuring the impact of their efforts, regardless of the touchpoint type. But it can be hard to know where to start.

Here are a few tips…

Step 1 – Set up your company for attribution

The first place to start is identifying all the ways customers can contact your business and ensuring those interactions can be tracked. This includes online and offline touchpoints such as phone calls, forms, emails, live chat, ecommerce purchases, and in-store activity.

Having the right tracking in place makes it easier to understand where leads and sales originate, as well as the customer journey that led to conversion. For a detailed walkthrough, read our guide on how to track marketing attribution.

Step 2 – Choose an attribution approach

The attribution approach you choose should align with your business goals, reporting requirements, and marketing maturity. Different organisations need different levels of visibility into the customer journey. Choose an approach that supports your objectives.

Step 3 – Choose a marketing attribution model

There are several marketing attribution models available, each assigning value to customer touchpoints in different ways. The right model depends on your reporting needs, customer journey complexity, and business objectives.

To learn more about the different approaches and when to use them, read our guide to marketing attribution models.

Key takeaways

To summarise, the customer ‘consideration phase’ is becoming as important to marketers as where they found out about the business and where they ended up making a purchase. The journey to purchase involves many different touchpoints and can take some time to convert.

Marketing attribution is a powerful tool that can give you a wealth of information about marketing efforts at all stages of the buying cycle. It can be as simple or complex as you need it to be, from tracking a single conversion point to every touchpoint.

Key to getting your organisation set up for marketing attribution are:

• Step 1 – Identify the channels your customers contact you through, including offline
• Step 2 – Choose an attribution approach and the tools that will enable you to measure online and offline interactions
• Step 3 – Choose and attribution model relevant to your business that will help calculate your ROI

Regardless of the model you choose, your reports are only as good as you make them, so ensure you have a reliable infrastructure that provides clean data, as well as the time needed to review and understand the reports you are producing.

When done well, marketing attribution shows us which marketing efforts influence our customers, and ultimately, which bring in revenue.

For more information

Mediahawk specialises in call tracking and multi-touch attribution. If you would like to chat to us about how you can start setting your company up for online and offline marketing attribution, we’d love to hear from you.

Article Update – 23/07/2026

We’ve updated this article to improve content structure and reduce overlap with related resources. Detailed guidance on tracking marketing attribution and marketing attribution models has been condensed and linked to dedicated guides.