Attribution Complexity

Obsessing over attribution eventually becomes counterproductive.

There are marketing departments that won't invest in channels because the ROI is not obvious and they can't sell the merit of the activity internally to get buy-in from other stakeholders (especially the CEO).

This is a huge mistake.

When you're going from 0 (where nothing is being tracked) to 1 (where marketing is tracking contribution to revenue), attribution can be incredibly valuable.

Yes, you want to know how marketing dollars invested are leading to a return in closed won bookings.

It's just that some marketing activities create an "environment" for buyers to make their way through to buying your product. A lot of these activities cannot be measured.

Content is a lot like that. Social media is a lot like that. Building a brand is a lot like that.

You can measure some of the metrics around these activities, but you can't measure them all.

But if you stop those activities simply because you can't measure the revenue impact, you stop creating an environment that helps customers.

Instead, use data and attribution models to help you triangulate the truth. From there, just have some trust in the environment that you've created for your customers.