Objective

Understand how attribution models work in practice and how they reveal the true contribution of marketing touchpoints.

Instructions

1. Create Your Company Profile

Define the fictional company:

• Company Name: [Your choice]
• Industry: B2B SaaS
• Product: [e.g., Project Management Software, Security Tool, Analytics Platform]
• Company Size: [Early-stage / Growth-stage / Enterprise]
• Sales Cycle: [Short (1-2 weeks) / Medium (1-3 months) / Long (3-6+ months)]

2. Describe the Attribution Problem

Explain what prompted the company to implement multi-touch attribution. Choose one or more of these scenarios:

Common Problems:

• Last-touch attribution gave all credit to the final sales call, making marketing look ineffective
• First-touch attribution only credited top-of-funnel activities, undervaluing nurture campaigns
• Unclear which mid-funnel activities (webinars, content, demos) were actually driving conversions
• Budget allocation decisions were based on gut feel rather than data
• Couldn't prove marketing ROI to executives

Write 2-3 sentences describing their specific challenge.

3. Explain the Attribution Model They Chose

Select one attribution model and explain why it fit their business:

Model Options:

Linear Attribution:

• Equal credit to all touchpoints
• Good for: Companies wanting to value all marketing efforts equally

U-Shaped (Position-Based):

• 40% to first touch, 40% to last touch, 20% to middle touches
• Good for: Companies that value awareness and conversion most

W-Shaped:

• 30% to first touch, 30% to opportunity creation, 30% to last touch, 10% to others
• Good for: B2B companies with clear opportunity stage in CRM

Time Decay:

• More credit to recent touchpoints
• Good for: Short sales cycles where recent actions matter most

Write 2-3 sentences explaining:

• Which model they chose
• Why it aligned with their sales process
• What they hoped to learn from it

4. Describe Key Insights Gained

Write 3-4 insights they discovered after implementing attribution:

Example Insights:

• "Webinars that seemed low-performing (few immediate conversions) were actually influencing 60% of closed deals"
• "Blog content was invisible in last-touch but showed up in 80% of customer journeys when using W-shaped"
• "Paid ads were great at first-touch but rarely led to opportunities; organic content better at mid-funnel engagement"
• "Sales demos got all the credit in last-touch, but multi-touch revealed 5 prior marketing touches on average"

Make your insights specific and data-driven.

5. Show the Impact

Explain what changed as a result:

• Budget allocation changes (e.g., "Increased webinar budget by 30%")
• Strategic shifts (e.g., "Started creating more mid-funnel content")
• Team alignment (e.g., "Marketing and sales now share credit for pipeline")
• Results (e.g., "Improved ROI by 25% within two quarters")

Write 2-3 sentences on the outcome.

6. Optional: Include a Lesson Learned

Add one challenge they faced or lesson learned:

• "Tracking offline touches (events, calls) required manual CRM updates"
• "Took 3 months to clean data before attribution was accurate"
• "Had to educate executives on why numbers looked different from last-touch"

Example Structure

Title: How [Company Name] Used W-Shaped Attribution to Prove Marketing's Value

Section 1: The Problem (2-3 sentences)

[Company] was struggling to prove marketing ROI because...

Section 2: The Solution (2-3 sentences)

They implemented W-shaped attribution because...

Section 3: Insights Discovered (3-4 bullet points)

• Insight 1
• Insight 2
• Insight 3

Section 4: The Impact (2-3 sentences)

As a result, they...

Section 5: Lesson Learned (1-2 sentences)

The biggest challenge was...

Outcome

You'll have written a practical case study that demonstrates how multi-touch attribution works and why it matters. This exercise deepens understanding of attribution models and their real-world application.