What is a lead attribution software?
A lead attribution software is a tool that tracks and identifies which of your many marketing efforts contributed to lead generation.
For example, a user discovers your services through your LinkedIn account, then finds you again through a Google Ad, to finally go directly to your site and fill out your lead gen form.
A lead attribution software will track all these touchpoints to help businesses attribute leads to specific campaigns, channels, or actions.
Lead attribution particularly matters for businesses that rely on lead generation. When a website generates a lead, the journey continues outside of the website, usually with a phone/video call, or email series to convert leads into paid customers.
Once a lead becomes a customer, businesses need to connect that revenue to the marketing channels that contributed to that sale. That’s where a lead attribution software matters, since it connects the revenue back to the marketing channels.
Benefits of a lead attribution software
By attributing your revenue back to the lead, businesses can identify the high-performing channels. For example, your SEO channel generated 150 leads, but only 5 converted into a sale, generating $6,000. In the meantime, your Google Ads generated 100 leads, from which 10 converted into sales, for a total of $10,000 generated.
Some tools provide comprehensive lead source tracking, allowing businesses to gain insights into which exact ad or keyword generated their leads, and optimize their marketing campaigns accordingly.
With a lead attribution software, businesses understand which marketing channels are involved in the generation of their leads. Tracking users throughout their journey allows them to optimize the sales funnel, and increase the conversion rate.
Different types of lead attribution tools
Different attribution models exist, and provide different insights into your marketing. There is no good or bad model, there are just models that fit your business than others. Let’s quickly have a look at the different types, so you can get an idea as to which fits your needs best.
First touch attribution
The lead is attributed to the first interaction with your business, the one that sparks interest, making it useful to understand how your leads discover your brand.
First touch attribution is particularly well suited for businesses that focus on brand awareness, and want to measure early engagements with their brand.
Businesses with fewer touchpoints, or short sales cycles, can also benefit because this model fits better with their simpler customers’ journey, and the data is easy to interpret.
On the flip side of the coin, it does not account for the other marketing channels that contribute to the actual generation of the leads.
Last touch attribution
This attribution model gives the full credit for your leads to the last interaction with your business, making it useful to understand which efforts directly result in lead generation.
Last-touch attribution is best suited for businesses or marketing goals that focus on closing leads and understanding what drives conversions
Businesses measuring bottom-of-funnel performance will choose last touch attribution.
It also works well for businesses with fewer touchpoints, where the last interaction is the most critical.
Multi-touch attribution
This attribution model is the most complete of the three as it distributes credit across multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey.
Multi-touch attribution is best suited for businesses that want to see the full picture of their customer journey, from first interaction to form submission.
Businesses running multiple marketing channels will more naturally choose multi-touch attribution, as it uncovers which channels contribute to the generation of their leads: ads, email, social media, content marketing, direct outreach, etc.
Multi-touch attribution can also help businesses with long sales cycles to keep track of their complex customer journey, and that require a more sophisticated tracking system.
Let’s go through the different lead attribution tools available in the market to help you find which is best for your business needs.
Best lead attribution software
1. LeadSources
LeadSources is a lead source tracking software that provides a comprehensive lead source report for every touchpoint, from first click to lead submission.
For each session a user has with your website, LeadSources tracks the channel, source, campaign, term, content, device, OS, and browser. It also tracks all the pages visited by a user during that session.
LeadSources allows multi-touch attribution by sending the attribution data to any CRM.
Key features:
- Comprehensive lead source tracking: LeadSources tracks 9+ lead source data points for each lead
- Multi-session tracking: LeadSources tracks the source across all interactions with your site, from first click to form submission
- Native integrations with popular form builders
Best for: Businesses with long and/or complex customer journeys, that want to uncover every channel, ad or customer path that contributed to the generation of each lead.
Attribution model:
- First click
- Last click
- Multi-touch
Pricing: Starting at $98
2. Ruler Analytics
Ruler Analytics tracks visitors from various channels (phone, form or live chat) throughout their journey, alongside their channel, source campaign and keyword extracted from the ad platforms. Ruler Analytics then connects these leads to the revenue recorded into your CRM.
Key features:
- Connects leads to costs and revenue
- Phone, form and chat lead tracking
Best for: Businesses generating leads from mediums (forms, chat, phone), and want to calculate their ROAS.
Attribution model:
- First click
- Last click
- Multi-touch
Pricing: Starting at £179
3. Dreamdata
Dreamdata tracks the source and journey of each customer, matches it with the marketing campaigns as well as the revenue they generate, and allows users to calculate ROAS and LTV for each marketing campaign.
Key features:
- Ad data, leads and revenue all in one dashboard
- Customer journey tracking
Best for: Businesses with long or complex customer journeys, generating leads using several marketing channels, and that need a robust system to make sense of all this data and calculate an accurate ROAS to make educated decisions about their ads and web pages.
Attribution model:
- First touch
- Last touch
- Multi touch
Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plan starting at $750/month)
4. AttributionIQ
AttributionIQ tracks the UTM parameters and websites for every form submitted, and matches these leads with the ad spent and the revenue generated, allowing users to calculate the ROAS of every campaign, keyword or ad.
Key features:
- Matches won deals with the ad spend and revenue
Best for: Businesses with simple customer journey that want to know which conversion channels impact revenue the most.
Attribution model: Last touch
Pricing: Starting at 100£/month
5. WhatConverts
WhatConverts captures form submissions, phone calls or chat, and connects them to their marketing source, campaign, keyword, and landing page.
You can see every interaction a visitor had, including their visits, pages viewed, chat or call started, form filled, conversion etc, all from the first click to the final conversion.
Key features:
- Tracks phone calls, chat and form submissions
- Multi-session tracking
Best for: Businesses with simple customer journey and using different mediums to generate leads: chats, phone calls, forms
Attribution model:
- Last touch
Pricing: Starting at $30/month (Call tracking)
How to choose the right lead attribution software
So which lead attribution software to choose? The answer differs from one business to another and depends on a few factors. Use them as a guide to help you choose the solution that fits your business needs.
Lead data tracked: The amount of information provided for each lead. Small businesses may cover their tracking needs by tracking UTM parameters only, while others may need to track more comprehensive lead data such as the device, OS, browser, etc.
Attribution model: For short and simple customer journeys, single touch lead attribution is enough to capture the data that matters. Businesses with longer and more complex customer journeys involving different visits from different marketing channels across a long period of time would benefit more from a multi-touch lead attribution software.
Lead generation tools: If your leads mainly come from your forms, a lead attribution software tracking only form submissions will do the job. Businesses whose leads are entering their sales cycle through different mediums: phone calls, chat, form, etc. may rather select a tool that covers them too.
Integrations with your tech stack: Ensure that the lead attribution software is compatible with the tools you are using to generate your leads and sales: form builder, CRM, and ad platforms.
