Guide to Setting Up Marketing Attribution in HubSpot

Understanding the impact of your marketing efforts is crucial in today’s data-driven environment. As customers engage with your brand across multiple channels and touchpoints, determining which efforts truly contribute to conversions is key. Marketing attribution allows you to assign value to each interaction, helping you understand how your strategies are driving results.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step guide to setting up marketing attribution in HubSpot, a powerful platform that helps you visualize and analyze the entire customer journey.

What is Marketing Attribution?

Marketing attribution is the process of identifying which marketing actions contribute to a specific goal, such as a sale or a lead conversion. In multi-channel marketing, attribution helps assign credit to each interaction a customer has with your brand before converting.

There are various attribution models, each assigning credit to touchpoints differently:

• First-Touch Attribution: Gives all credit to the first interaction.
• Last-Touch Attribution: Gives all credit to the final interaction.
• Multi-Touch Attribution: Distributes credit across multiple interactions.
• Time Decay: Gives more credit to touchpoints closer to the conversion event.

Why Marketing Attribution Matters

• Optimize Campaigns: By understanding which touchpoints and channels contribute most to conversions, you can optimize your marketing efforts.
• Maximize ROI: Attribution helps allocate your budget more efficiently by investing in channels and strategies that work.
• Data-Driven Decisions: With clear insights into the customer journey, you can make informed decisions based on real data rather than assumptions.

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Marketing Attribution in HubSpot

Step 1: Enable HubSpot’s Attribution Reporting

To start using marketing attribution, you’ll need access to HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise. These tiers offer built-in tools for creating attribution reports.

1. Navigate to your HubSpot account.
2. Go to Reports > Analytics Tools.
3. Select Attribution Reports. Here, you’ll be able to set up various types of attribution models based on your goals.

Step 2: Choose an Attribution Model

HubSpot offers several pre-built attribution models that allow you to analyze your marketing efforts from different perspectives. You can select from the following:

1. First-Touch Attribution: Focuses on the first interaction that initiated a customer’s journey with your brand.
2. Last-Touch Attribution: Concentrates on the final interaction before the conversion.
3. Linear Attribution: Distributes credit evenly across all touchpoints.
4. Time Decay Attribution: Assigns more credit to interactions that occurred closer to the conversion event.
5. U-Shaped Attribution: Gives heavier weighting to the first and last interactions, with some credit spread across the middle interactions.
6. W-Shaped Attribution: Focuses on the first touch, the middle touch (usually lead conversion), and the last touch, dividing credit among these key stages.

To choose your model:

1. Go to Attribution Reports.
2. Click on Create Report and choose the attribution model that fits your business strategy.
3. Experiment with multiple models to understand how different touchpoints contribute to conversions.

Step 3: Set Up Your Conversion Goals

Before you can accurately assign credit to touchpoints, you need to define what constitutes a conversion for your business. This could be a form submission, a purchase, a demo request, or another meaningful action.

1. Navigate to Settings in HubSpot.
2. Under Tracking and Analytics, go to Goals.
3. Set up conversion goals based on actions like completing a lead form, subscribing to a newsletter, or completing a purchase.

These goals will be crucial for attribution, as they represent the end point of the customer journey.

Step 4: Track Your Marketing Channels

For HubSpot’s attribution reports to function effectively, it’s essential to ensure that all your marketing channels are being tracked within the platform. HubSpot allows you to track activities across various channels, such as:

• Website Visits: Track page views, interactions, and behavior on your website.
• Social Media Engagement: Monitor social interactions and engagement from platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
• Paid Ads: Use HubSpot’s ad integration to track clicks and conversions from Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn Ads.
• Email Campaigns: Track opens, clicks, and other engagement metrics from your email marketing efforts.
• Forms and Landing Pages: Track form submissions, lead magnet downloads, and other lead-generation activities.

Ensure that UTM parameters are properly set up across your campaigns to give HubSpot detailed insights into how users are engaging with your content.

Step 5: Build Custom Attribution Reports

Once your channels are set up and conversion goals are defined, it’s time to build custom attribution reports. These reports will help you visualize how different touchpoints contribute to conversions.

1. Go to Reports > Attribution Reports.
2. Click Create Custom Report.
3. Select your desired attribution model (e.g., First Touch, Last Touch, or Multi-Touch).
4. Choose the specific conversion actions or goals you want to analyze (e.g., form submissions, sales).
5. Set a time frame for the data you want to examine.

Your custom report will display how each touchpoint contributes to conversions, helping you understand which channels are driving the most value.

Step 6: Create an Attribution Dashboard

To visualize your data regularly, create a custom dashboard where you can track the performance of different marketing touchpoints over time.

1. Go to Dashboards > Create Dashboard.
2. Add your attribution reports to the dashboard.
3. Customize your dashboard to include key metrics like revenue attribution by channel, campaign attribution, and time to conversion.

This dashboard will serve as a central place where you can monitor the performance of your marketing efforts across various channels.

Step 7: Analyze and Optimize

With your attribution reports and dashboard in place, you can start using the insights to optimize your marketing strategy:

• Reallocate Budget: If certain channels (e.g., paid ads) are driving most of your conversions, consider increasing your investment in those areas.
• Adjust Messaging: Analyze which touchpoints are most effective, and adjust your messaging accordingly. For example, if email marketing plays a significant role in conversion, you might want to focus more on email engagement.
• Test Attribution Models: Periodically switch between attribution models (e.g., first-touch vs. multi-touch) to get a broader understanding of how your campaigns are performing.

Best Practices for Marketing Attribution in HubSpot

1. Regularly Update Your Reports: Keep your attribution reports up to date to reflect the latest customer interactions and conversion data.
2. Align Sales and Marketing: Involve both sales and marketing teams when analyzing attribution data to ensure alignment in strategies.
3. Experiment with Different Models: Different attribution models provide unique insights. Use them to analyze different aspects of your marketing performance.
4. Use UTM Parameters: Always track your campaigns with UTM parameters to ensure HubSpot captures every relevant touchpoint.
5. Segment Your Data: Break down your attribution data by channel, campaign, and customer segments to gain deeper insights.

Conclusion

Setting up marketing attribution in HubSpot is a game-changer for businesses looking to maximize their marketing impact. With the ability to track multiple touchpoints and assign credit to the interactions that matter most, you can make data-driven decisions that improve campaign performance and boost ROI.

By following these steps and best practices, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of your marketing efforts and unlock new opportunities for growth and optimization.