Attribution Mapping Methodology attribution-mapping-methodology

Attribution Mapping Methodology is the process of looking up certain objects in your CRM (Contacts, Opportunities, Accounts) to create attribution touchpoints into the associated opportunity. In other words, it’s the Marketo Measure way of understanding which touchpoints to include in the attribution model based on your current CRM’s processes.

Account ID Mapping account-id-mapping

Out of the box, Marketo Measure provides Account ID mapping. This means that Marketo Measure looks at the Account and its Contacts marketing information to create Attribution Touchpoints associated to the opportunity. Below is a simple representation of that process.

Keep in mind that not all touchpoints from your contacts get pushed into the Opportunity as Attribution Touchpoints. The Opportunity’s timeline (its first touch date - closed date) determines whether a touchpoint counts as an influencer on the Opportunity. Therefore, if a touchpoint on Contact A occurred after the Opportunity is Closed Won/Lost, Marketo Measure will not push that touchpoint to the Opportunity. This timeline procedure is followed across all other attribution object mapping.

Pros: This method of attribution is highly effective for most companies. The marketing team doesn’t need to rely on the sales team to associate all contacts to a particular opportunity (which is often an issue). Further, even if a sales team associates contact roles, many other contact’s interactions with marketing materials may be missed. Finally, this method aides ABM strategy that strives to influence the totality of an account, rather than specific influencers.

Cons: If there are strong Marketing & Sales SLAs that define who should be getting credit for what, then this method could be problematic. In addition, if folks don’t use Account hierarchies to define specific business units within a larger account (ex: IBM), then marketing interactions specific to one business unit may get spread across other business unit opportunities.

Opportunity Contact Role Mapping opportunity-contact-role-mapping

While most clients use Account ID mapping, Marketo Measure can look up to the contact roles (contacts associated to the Opportunity) within an Opportunity to break down the attribution process. This means that Marketo Measure will only push marketing interactions associated to the contact roles on the Opportunity as Buyer Attribution Touchpoints. Below is a representation of this process.

Pros: If your team has a well-defined contact roles process, this type of attribution mapping may be ideal for you. It helps align sales and marketing a bit more as everyone would fully understand how attribution is broken down. This process is also helpful when organizations are targeting multiple business units within a large company and when they are selling different products at the same time.

Cons: However, if there’s no contact role process in place, marketing loses a lot of marketing data and the team will end up receiving a lot less credit for their marketing efforts that are influencing opportunities.

Opportunity Primary Contact Role Mapping opportunity-primary-contact-role-mapping

Beyond simply looking at the contact roles on the opportunity, Marketo Measure can focus even more to look at only the Primary Contacts on an Opportunity. With this setup in mind, Marketo Measure only grabs the marketing touchpoint associated to the primary contacts on an opportunity and push that information into the attribution story of that specific opportunity. See the image below.

Pros: If your team is only interested in understand the marketing influence on contacts that are set as ‘primary’ on the opportunity, this type of mapping suits the team best.

Cons: This is certainly the least used mapping process and can highly undermine marketing influence that’s moving the needle across other contacts on an opportunity.