Why contact-level attribution matters in B2B
When working with Adobe customers on attribution reporting — looking at which marketing interactions are leading to conversions — one of the first things we ask is if they are associating contacts with opportunities. In many customer relationship management (CRM) systems, this is called a “contact role” on the opportunity. This step identifies which contacts are part of the buying decision for a given opportunity. They’re not just a person at this account — they’ll influence whether the opportunity is won or lost.
Knowing who the influencers are for an opportunity matters if you want to know if your marketing activities are generating leads that turn into buyers. In B2B demand generation, leads that don’t turn into buyers are draining your time, resources, and database size.
Marketers must prove that the money they spend is generating revenue. Unlike salespeople who identify, create, and claim ownership of opportunities, marketers must demonstrate how their initiatives tangibly and meaningfully contributed to the creation and booking of those deals.
Attribution and opportunities
As a general rule, most B2B CRMs require an opportunity to be associated with an account. But associating one or more contacts with that opportunity — identifying who the specific buyers are — is often optional. And optional usually means it doesn’t get added.
Many products that do attribution reporting allow for account-level attribution, where any contacts at that account and the marketing initiatives they’ve been a part of share attribution credit. And many businesses are looking for detailed insights into the actions of specific people in an account to understand how these behaviors influence the account’s purchasing decisions.
Unfortunately, your salespeople aren’t always creating contact roles on the opportunity. The data simply isn’t there for you to work with. And if that’s the case, then account-level attribution is better than nothing at all. But if you have an opportunity to shape your sales processes and create contact-level relationships with each opportunity, then you should take advantage .
Let’s say you’re a marketer for WidgiTech International, a major supplier of innovative devices. You’re eager to pitch to Adobe Inc, so, you unpack your new marketing tool — a $100 megaphone. You stand outside Adobe’s headquarters and start broadcasting compelling value propositions. Due to your megaphone’s impressive range, you can even target specific floors, focusing on where you think the operations and facilities teams are stationed.
You market with unwavering enthusiasm for seven days, but despite your efforts, there’s no response from Adobe headquarters. The next day, however, sales logs an opportunity in WidgiTech’s CRM for a possible $1 million sale to Adobe.
Can you definitively attribute this opportunity to your megaphone? Not quite. Correlation (the $100 megaphone and the opportunity happening within a day) does not indicate causation. It’s possible that the people on those floors were out of office that week.
Let’s take it a step further. Suppose that while you’re broadcasting at Adobe headquarters, an Adobe representative expresses interest and asks for more information. You use your megaphone automation to send details and alert sales. The next day, sales logs an opportunity in WidgiTech’s CRM for the potential $1 million sale to Adobe.
Can you credit your megaphone for this opportunity now? Not so fast. Sales didn’t link the representative to the opportunity, and when you look closer, you discover the lead is actually the director of Adobe Consulting Services. His teams don’t use the devices you sell. He was just visiting headquarters on the day you marketed with your megaphone. In fact, your salesperson confirms they’ve never interacted with a representative from Adobe Consulting Services.
How marketers get taken seriously
While this is a hyperbolic example, it effectively demonstrates the limits of marketing attribution. We recently worked with a client whose attribution was set to account level. They were initially thrilled by, and then skeptical of, a particular marketing event that was being attributed to a major opportunity with a big account. When we looked at the account records showing who’d attended that event, not one attendee was associated with that big opportunity. They were getting credit for being part of the account, but not part of the opportunity.
And that’s the difference. The reality is, unless a marketer knows exactly who is buying, they cannot say with confidence that their marketing is influencing purchases of products or services. And that level of certainty is how marketers get taken seriously at the revenue table.
If this sounds like a familiar problem and you’re wondering how to apply this to your attribution efforts, Adobe Consulting Services can help. We start by analyzing how your sales teams are using opportunities roles today. If they aren’t doing so consistently, then you’ll want to make the case for why this is critical to truly understand the value of marketing dollars. You’ll want to work with sales operations to make any necessary changes to the CRM to enforce contact-level attribution. And finally, we can help you optimize your marketing systems to better support more accurate attribution reporting — and determine if you have the right tools configured properly to get the best revenue data.
Michaela Iery has more than 20 years of traditional and digital marketing experience. Her experience includes more than 10 years with Adobe Marketo Engage, first as an Adobe customer and now as a principal business consultant in Adobe Consulting Services.
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