If only Business-to-Business or B2B marketing attribution were as simple as selecting the author of a cooking recipe at a restaurant. Often in B2B scenarios, there are 10+ chefs, and they all want to claim they made the best dish! Where every touchpoint wants credit, how do we actually track who’s responsible for that million-dollar deal? Hint: it’s not always clear and neither is it linear!
Attribution is often misunderstood
In B2B, the buying journey is also intent based which can then vary based on organizational roadmap changes. Buyers are influenced across many channels, conversations, and there are likely multiple decision makers involved before the trigger is pulled to proceed. B2B decision-makers use more channels (10) than ever to interact with suppliers (source).
Purchase or closures are not always a result of marketing or sales efforts alone, especially in larger orgs. It’s rarely linear in nature.
Who gets the credit?
Expecting linear results from marketing is like expecting a gourmet meal to appear just by putting ingredients on the counter. It’s not just about the final plating; it’s the prep, technique, experience, the right mix of spices, cooking time, temperature control, and timing. The chef, sous-chefs, and servers must work together in harmony to create a perfect dish. And, of course, if a dish occasionally comes together in a flash, that’s the exception or result of years of practice, not the norm. Like B2B marketing, it’s a complex, layered process—not a single action or linear journey.
Does Deal Size Matter?
It’s not surprising that deal and audience sizes significantly influence marketing strategy and attribution models.
Linear attribution could work for smaller deals, 10K USD and below, where there might be fewer decision-making influencers. These could be on-off purchases, short term contracts or limited licenses. This is organization and industry dependent, and where the customer is in the buying cycle.
For mid-sized deals (from 10K to 100K the decision-making process will involve more touchpoints and internal approvals. Larger deals in 100K to millions of USD where the decision-making process is more complex will likely need a longer buying cycle, multiple touchpoints and marketing, sales, leadership engagements.
Leads can surface via inquiries, go cold, then reappear after 6 months- at a networking event, or consume content post a sales conversation.
Teams needs to build attribution models based on industry, solutions, buying cycle and deal size targets.
10-30% of deals in the B2B tech and services space can be marketing-sourced or directly attributable to marketing-led initiatives. These are normally generated from activities such as emails, events, account-based marketing (ABM), or inbound channels like content, web, social.
40-70% of deals can be influenced by marketing activities at different stages of the buyer journey, or shared via referrals (source). Touchpoints include whitepapers, case studies, thought leadership assets, product demos, webinars, nurture campaigns, and C-suite events, tradeshows. Revenue here might be new, cross-sell/up-sell or renewal revenue. (source)
If you feel that your industry/deal size behaviour differs, here’s an interesting exercise to do for your business. Evaluate deal sizes and sales cycle acceleration with and without marketing engagement over a period of time (ensure that it’s statistically significant). This can help set benchmarks for new teams or confirm existing assumptions.
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Read part 2 of the B2B Marketing Attribution Dilemma, where I address some effective strategies for better impact.
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About the Author
Vineeth Abraham is a seasoned B2B marketing professional with over 14 years of experience in enhancing brand recognition, driving demand generation, and executing integrated multi-channel marketing strategies. He has a proven track record of leveraging data-driven approaches and leading cross-functional teams to achieve measurable business outcomes across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Vineeth’s expertise spans both SaaS and traditional products, having delivered innovative marketing strategies in diverse organizational settings, across both global corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Meta, and more entrepreneurial product and services focused organizations. Connect with Vineeth on LinkedIn to learn more about his marketing and consulting experience.