Accept that software attribution measures what is clickable, not what is persuasive, and the gap is enormous. Refine Labs tracked 620 declared-intent conversions against 21.5 million dollars of closed-won revenue and found self-reported data credited podcasts with 53 percent of revenue while the tracking software credited them with zero. So run both. Ask every inbound lead one open question about how they heard of you, keep the tracked data for optimising within a channel, and use holdout or geo tests when you need to know whether a channel actually caused anything. Then stop arguing about who sourced a deal and agree on one shared pipeline number, because sourced-versus-influenced is a scoreboard fight nobody wins.
3 hand-picked resources, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it Shopify's performance marketing lead on channel order (Google search first, LinkedIn reserved for tight B2B targeting because of cost), team structure and incrementality. The rare paid conversation that is not selling you an agency.
On Lenny's Newsletter by Timothy Davis with Lenny Rachitsky 75 min listen
Open lennysnewsletter.com →Why we picked it The single most quotable attribution finding we know of: across 620 declared-intent conversions and 21.5 million dollars of closed-won revenue, self-reported data credited podcasts with 53 percent of revenue and the software credited them with 0 percent.
From Refine Labs 12 min read
Open refinelabs.com →Why we picked it The other half of the answer: how to actually find out whether a channel caused anything, using holdouts, geo tests and lift studies. It is also honest that click attribution flatters brand search and retargeting, which convert regardless.
From Supermetrics by Olivia Kory and Erkki Paunonen 16 min read
Open supermetrics.com →How inbound, content and demand gen reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Get your first customers, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Grow organically & retain, our D2C track.
