Transcript

Unqualified Leads – Episode 009 Highlights

Hosts: Harry Hughes & Daniel

Topic: Why attribution creates false precision, how it misleads B2B marketers into bad decisions, and how to build a more complete, realistic measurement model using intent, signals, sales-cycle reality, and portfolio thinking.

The Attribution Trap: Why Marketers Overvalue What’s Measurable

Many teams fall into “The Attribution Trap” because attribution feels concrete. It produces numbers, percentages, ROAS, CPAs — things boards and managers crave.

But attribution’s real danger? It offers the illusion of accuracy, not accuracy itself.

Most attribution models reward what’s closest to the conversion, retargeting, branded search, last-click. But these are capture channels, not creation channels.

What attribution can’t see (and therefore under-values):

• Long-term content

• Dark social

• Podcasts

• Paid social demand creation

• Brand and category awareness

• Word-of-mouth

• Multi-touch influence across months

Marketers cling to measurable data not because it’s true, but because the alternative, ambiguity, feels risky.

So teams optimise for what they can see…Instead of what actually drives revenue.

1. Why Attribution Over-Credits the Wrong Channels

• Attribution rewards visibility:

  It credits the channel closest to the sale because that’s the only touchpoint it can “see.”

  
  

  Which means:

  • Retargeting looks like a hero

  • Branded search looks like a cash machine

  • Bottom-funnel PPC looks unbeatable

  • Demand-gen, brand, and upstream content look “inefficient”

    
    

  Boards love numbers they can forecast; attribution gives them numbers, even when those numbers are misleading.

  
  

  The danger: You end up optimising toward false ROI and starving the channels creating demand months earlier.

2. Real-World Example: Silos, Search, and The “Kill The Wrong Channel” Problem

Daniel breaks down real examples:

Teams invest heavily in bottom-funnel performance ads. Last-click shows great ROAS. But upper-funnel, where 70%+ of demand actually originates gets cut because attribution never sees it.

Another example: You run paid social for months. Organic search traffic rises. Leadership mistakenly credits SEO and cuts social spend, killing the demand engine that caused the lift.

Channel silos cause failure:

• Channels are managed individually

• But reported in isolation

• So budgets get moved based on incomplete data

• Which destroys compounding effects across the mix

Good execution in silos. Terrible decision-making in silos.

3. Time Horizons: Why Marketers Make Decisions Too Early

One of the biggest mistakes: Shutting down campaigns way before the sales cycle is complete.

If your sales cycle is 4–6 months, making a judgment at 4–6 weeks isn’t just wrong, it’s harmful.

You can’t determine:

• ACV

• SQL → Opportunity %

• Opportunity → Closed-Won %

• Payback period

• Deal velocity

…until multiple cycles have played out. And for paid social in particular, early-stage signals often look noisy until the data matures downstream.

Campaigns need time.

Sales cycles need time.

Reporting needs time.

If leadership won’t allow that, you get stuck in a permanent demand-capture loop, scraping the bottom of the market until it dries out.

4. Signals: The Missing Middle of Measurement

Signals indicate momentum before pipeline shows up. But not all signals are equal.

You need to weight signals based on quality:

Low-value signals:

• Raw website traffic

• Generic engagement

• Shallow page views

High-value signals:

• ICP accounts visiting key pages

• Repeat visits to pricing pages

• Return visitors from named accounts

• Repeat podcast attendance

• Deep content consumption

• High-value forms or demo requests

Signals matter, but they can’t replace conversions. They’re leading indicators, not attribution, not outcomes.

The trick is balancing:

• Attribution → Helps diagnose late-stage influence

• Signals → Reveal early-stage momentum

• Sales data → Reveals truth

You need all three.

Not one.

Not two.

All of them.

5. Self-Reported Attribution: The Story That Platforms Can’t Tell

Self-reported attribution fills the biggest blind spots:

• Podcasts

• Referrals

• LinkedIn content

• Personal brand

• Community exposure

• Word of mouth

But even self-reported attribution isn’t gospel. People misremember. They answer aspirationally. They tell you what they think you want to hear.

So again, it’s one signal , one piece of the story, not a silver bullet.

6. Portfolio Thinking: How Mature Teams Avoid The Attribution Trap

Too many teams optimise channel by channel. Mature teams optimise the mix.

• Instead of: “LinkedIn’s CPA is high, cut it.”

• It becomes: “LinkedIn is driving demand that lowers CAC in search and direct.”

• Instead of: “Search is too expensive.”

• It becomes: “Search converts highest-intent buyers fastest, keep it strong.”

  
  

Top-level metrics:

• Marketing spend in → Revenue out

  Over time. Across channels. As a system.

That’s how B2C/e-commerce has done it for a decade. B2B is only now catching up.

7. Why Early-Stage Companies Struggle the Most

Younger businesses try to do attribution too early. They treat early data as statistically meaningful. They bounce between channels chasing “perfect clarity.”

Common mistakes:

• Jumping to 8–10 campaigns too soon

• Switching channels before cycles complete

• Expecting immediate attribution from awareness plays

• Using last-click to judge demand-gen

• Over-investing in bottom-funnel because it “looks efficient”

• Under-investing in brand because the data feels ambiguous

Early attribution is volatile, sparse, and misleading. Patience, sequencing, and channel selection matter far more.

8. Final Example: Paid Social vs Paid Search…Why Quality Beats CPA

Harry shares a common scenario: Paid search SQLs are more expensive. Paid social SQLs are cheaper. Leadership wants to cut search.

But deeper analysis shows:

• Paid search SQLs convert faster

• They move to opportunity more reliably

• They close at higher rates

• They have shorter payback periods

• They have higher intent

Meanwhile, paid social SQLs may be cheaper but slower, lower intent, and more variable.

A campaign that “looks expensive” today may be far more profitable once the full pipeline plays out.

This is why attribution alone leads teams to kill golden geese.

Final Takeaways

Attribution is a diagnostic tool, not a truth machine. It provides visibility, not accuracy. Precision, not truth.

To avoid the Attribution Trap:

• Look at the whole story, not isolated touch-points

• Combine UTM data, SRA, signals, sales data, and qualitative insights

• Report on marketing as a portfolio, not a set of silos

• Give channels full sales cycles before making decisions

• Use attribution as input, not the final verdict

When you shift from attribution obsession to holistic measurement, marketing becomes more accurate, more predictable, and more scalable.