The path to conversion for a lead to a customer is rarely a straight line. It also doesn’t involve solely your sales team dialing the phone day in and day out, but rather a combination of your account executives and marketing department’s efforts. Between your two departments, you forge an ideal buyers’ journey aimed at transforming website visitors into paying customers.
But, as noted, these leads will follow your buyers’ journey differently. Some may read all your blog articles on their phones. Others may prefer downloading premium content to their desktop. If you’re lucky, a prospect could become a customer after a persuasive email. To fully understand all the touchpoints your leads took to become a customer – from the first to last and everything in between – you should utilize various marketing attribution reports.
Continue reading to learn what these are and how to create them in HubSpot.
What is Marketing Attribution?
Marketing attribution refers to the identification of actions someone took that assisted in creating the desired outcome, with an assignment of value to each engagement. In this scenario, that outcome would be converting to a customer. For example, say a user searches for “HubSpot integrations” and skims through a couple of sites, including your own. The action would be the Google search, and you could set whatever value, or points, you wish to it.
This model allows marketing departments to track their campaigns’ performance in the sales process and, ultimately, their influence on a person’s purchasing decision. There are several marketing attribution reporting models, but three stand out in HubSpot’s reporting capabilities:
- First Touch – First touch marketing attribution refers to the first channel a user used to interact with you before converting on your site. In our example above, it would be an initial Google search that led that specific user to your website. The first touch is crucial because it begins the buyers’ journey for your potential customers.
- Last Touch – Last touch marketing attribution refers to the last channel someone used to interact with you before converting. A scenario for this could include an email with a link to a pricing or demo page. The final touch is also critical because it shows the ultimate factor that resulted in that person converting.
- Multi-Touch – Multi-touch marketing attribution includes all the touchpoints or actions, including what content, where it was received, and how that user interacted with it from start to finish. Multi-touch gives conversion credit to every interaction within the buyers’ journey – which is vital to understand. That includes the two examples above, Google search, and email, as well as many more.
Marketing attribution reports of all kinds can help marketers focus on driving conversions by highlighting what content, channels, and mediums helped convert visitors. With this information, they can optimize their campaigns to increase conversions.
How To Create a First-Touch/Last Touch Marketing Attribution Report
Now that you understand the value of seeing the initial and final interaction, here’s how to create these specific reports in HubSpot:
- In HubSpot, go to “Reports” in the navigation, then select “Reports” in the dropdown
- Click “Create a custom report”
- Choose “Attribution”
- Select “Contacts”
- Build your report by filtering your contacts, picking an attribution object (i.e., URL, source, referrer), then an attribution model (first touch or last touch)
- Hit “Run report” then save
How to Create a Multi-Touch Marketing Attribution Report
It’s essential to understand every action someone took that lead to conversion to get a comprehensive view of your entire marketing efforts. Create a multi-touch marketing attribution report with these steps:
- In HubSpot, go to “Reports” in the navigation, then select “Reports” in the dropdown
Click “Create a custom report” - Choose “Attribution”
- Select “Contacts”
- Build your report by filtering your contacts, picking an attribution object (i.e., URL, source, referrer), then an attribution model (all interactions)
- Hit “Run report” then save
Need Help with Reporting?
If you find yourself struggling to create or make sense of these reports (or any, for that matter) in HubSpot, we can help. Additionally, if you want to improve the performance of your campaigns, we can provide guidance and support on several inbound marketing tactics. Reach out today to speak with an expert to go over your needs!