Marketo Attribution 101 – Types, Rules & How to Make the Most of It

How do you attribute a value to the role that any particular marketing effort plays in the conversion of any leads or customers? This is one of the most frequently asked questions by our customers. Setting up this kind of attribution is one of the best practices they can follow to augment their digital marketing and advertising campaigns. However, owing to the intricacies of rules, types, touchpoints, values and other features of Marketo attribution, they fail to make the most of it and get utmost results.

In this complete Marketo attribution guide, our goal is to help you understand what Marketo attribution is, how to play by its rules, and how to make the most of it.

What is Marketo attribution?

Attribution enables users to understand which Marketo programs help to influence opportunities and sales, and even the role the programs play in helping move people through the sales funnel. It helps measuring the effectiveness of programs whether they are being used for generating sales or new names, and for improved decision making before investing resources, efforts and time in future programs.

Major rules of and functionalities of Marketo attribution are –

• Marketo attribution helps monitor the impact of a range of programs on specific opportunities

• To meet the criteria of attribution, the date for ‘Success’ or ‘Acquisition’ should be on or before the day a specific opportunity has been created or the date it has been closed.

• Marketo measures attribution by taking account of the date a program first touches a lead or contact. That’s why the exact time an opportunity is created or won will be unrelated.

• The contact record must have a ROLE or be the Primary Contact for the opportunity

• The First-Touch (FT) attribution helps identify programs that qualify for acquiring new names which will boost revenues.

• On the other hand, the multi-touch (MT) attribution helps identify a more complex program that is proven influential in shifting names in the in the sales funnel.

Acquisition Program

• Acquisition attribution also enables marketers to add opportunity credit to Marketo programs that are appended with new records

• All acquisition credits given to any specific opportunity, whether created or won, the records are get added to an acquiring program

• Records are not required to meet success to be qualified for the acquiring program

• Acquisition attribution will be a tiny proportion if too many leads are associated to a single opportunity that are acquired by different programs

• Acquisition must take place either at the same time as, or before, any opportunity gets created, advances through the sales pipeline or if it wins revenue.

• When an opportunity has been created before the record has been acquired, the program will not get qualified for an acquisition attribution.

• The acquisition attributions are found as the (FT) in Marketo.

Success Program

• On the other hand, the success attribution enables marketers adding opportunity credit to programs of which the records have met success

• In success attribution, credit given to an opportunity is equally divided within all programs which have achieved success. The record doesn’t have to be acquired by any of these programs.

• Success attribution can be considered small portions when a record reaches success in multiple programs.

• This success attribution can also be measured as small parts when multiple records are associated to same opportunities which have already attained success in various programs.

• In order to qualify as success attribution, the success must take place either on the day or before an opportunity has been passed to the pipeline or won revenue credit.

• Successes attained by programs after the opportunity is created will not be given credit for sales pipeline

• Success in programs the day after opportunity creation but before they are closed will get credit for revenue won

• Success attribution is found as multi-touch (MT) attribution in Marketo

Do you often get into the dilemma when to focus on the pipeline and revenue then, use this small assessment chart will guide you through as well as how to use pipeline against revenue and vice versa.

Focus on Pipeline if you are –

• Analyzing those Marketo programs that are created with sole purposes of demand generation. Those may include online forms, PPC, tradeshows and other events.
• Scanning first-touch or acquisition attribution for the acquisition of new names.
• If the buying cycle takes an unusually long time.
• In B2B environment, if marketing activities do not have much impact or involvement in buying cycle.
• If you are measuring the performance of your marketing teams based on the number of leads or on MQL values.

Focus on ‘Revenue’ if you are –

• Analyzing Marketo programs, including emails, product demos and trial campaigns etc., that are created with the primary objective is to generate sales.
• Evaluating the influence of campaign progress on records, multi-touch, or success attribution.
• Interacting with a shorter sales cycle.
• If your marketing activities have a significant influence on the sales cycle in a B2C environment.
• Measuring the effectiveness of your marketing teams based on their contribution in revenue generation.

Do you need in-depth help and professional assistance in understanding, setting up Marketo attribution for programs and assuming the best practices to make the most of attributions? Then get in touch directly with our Marketo Certified Professionals at (408) 502 6765 or via our social channels at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Watch for this space for more tips, help and updates, as well as winning techniques to set up Marketo attribution. In the meanwhile, we want to hear from you – so, please feel free to leave a question or story below in the comment box.