The long-standing debate about the ROI of content marketing has always had two sides: marketers vs. businesses.
For businesses, it’s all about the numbers — they believe in content’s importance but struggle to prove its value with hard data.
On the flip side, marketers struggle with tracking content effectiveness across countless channels, platforms, and devices.
The real challenge? The buyer’s journey is no longer linear.
It now involves a web of touchpoints — from blog posts and social media interactions to video content and email newsletters. This makes measuring content’s true impact harder than ever.
Fragmented data, long sales cycles, and the blending of online and offline interactions only add to the complexity.
This begs the question — how do you accurately measure the influence of each piece of content in this complex journey?
The answer? Content marketing attribution.
Content marketing attribution is the process of identifying and assigning value to the specific pieces of content that influence a buyer’s decision to convert or take a desired action —whether it’s generating leads, driving sales, or enhancing customer engagement.
But why does your content need attribution?
The concept of attribution stems from the idea that a customer doesn’t typically convert after just one interaction with your brand.
💡Embed → How Times Change - Episode 1 - How The Buyer's Journey Has Changed
Let’s take two examples — one with attribution, and one without.
💡Example 1 — a customer first discovers your product through a blog post, then watches a webinar, clicks on an email link, and finally makes a purchase after reading a product review.
In this journey, several content pieces influenced the customer’s journey. By attributing value to these touchpoints, marketers can pinpoint which content drives conversions and refine their strategies to focus on high-impact areas.
💡Example 2 — Let’s say you create a series of blog posts or launch a video campaign but don’t track how these assets contribute to your goals, you might miss critical insights.
Some content could be underperforming, while others could be responsible for driving most conversions.
Without understanding this performance, businesses might continue to invest in content that doesn't yield significant results.
Embed Video → Touchpoint Hierarchy
Think of attribution models as frameworks that determine how credit is assigned to various touchpoints along the customer journey.
Each model offers a different perspective on how to value interactions, providing you with insights into which touchpoints or pieces of content contribute most to conversions.
⚠️Note → Selecting the right attribution model depends on your business goals, the complexity of the customer journey, and the type of content you’re producing.
In single-touch or first-click attribution models, 100% of the credit for a conversion is assigned to the first touchpoint the user interacted with.
This model is especially useful for top-of-funnel content, where the goal is to drive awareness or engagement.
Example: Imagine a potential customer first discovers your brand through an SEO-optimized blog post about “Top 10 Attribution Solutions for 2024.”
After reading the blog, they don’t convert immediately but return later through an email campaign and eventually make a purchase.
In the first-touch attribution model, the blog post would receive all the credit for the conversion, as it was the first interaction that brought the customer into the funnel.
🚩Limitation → While single-touch attribution is valuable for top-of-funnel insights, it disregards any subsequent interactions, making it less useful for understanding the entire customer journey.
Last-touch (or last-click) attribution gives all the credit for a conversion to the last interaction before the customer took the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.
This is most commonly used when the focus is on tracking direct conversions, such as purchases or sign-ups, especially in short sales cycles.
Example: Suppose a user has engaged with your blog posts and LinkedIn content over the course of several weeks.
However, the final touchpoint before their purchase is a promotional email that includes a discount code.
In this case, last-touch attribution would assign 100% of the credit to that email, even though earlier content played a role in nurturing the lead.
🚩Limitation → This model overlooks the contributions of earlier interactions, which may have played a significant role in nurturing the lead. As a result, marketers may miss key insights about what content works in earlier stages of the funnel.
Linear attribution spreads the credit evenly across all touchpoints the user interacts with before converting. Every piece of content receives equal credit, regardless of its role in the customer journey.
This model works well when you want to measure the effectiveness of all content and touchpoints equally. It is especially useful in long sales cycles where multiple pieces of content contribute to the final conversion.
Example: A customer first engages with a blog post, later watches a product demo video, clicks on a social media ad, and finally receives a follow-up email before converting.
In a linear attribution model, each of these four touchpoints—blog post, video, ad, and email—would receive an equal 25% share of the credit for the conversion.
🚩Limitation → This model assumes all touchpoints have an equal impact on conversion, which isn’t always true. Some touchpoints might have a more significant influence on a customer’s decision, but linear attribution doesn’t take that into account.
Time-decay attribution assigns more credit to touchpoints that are closer to the final conversion. The idea is that interactions that happen nearer to the point of conversion are more valuable than earlier ones.
This is ideal for businesses with longer sales cycles, where content closer to the conversion event typically plays a more critical role. It also helps highlight content that seals the deal.
Example: Let’s say a customer starts by reading a blog post, later engages with a social media ad, and then clicks on an email before finally purchasing after attending a webinar.
In a time-decay attribution model, the webinar and email would receive more credit for the conversion, while the blog post and social media ad would receive less credit, as they occurred earlier in the journey.
🚩Limitation → This model often undervalues top-of-funnel content, which is crucial for building awareness and nurturing leads.
Position-based, or U-shaped attribution, assigns 40% of the credit to both the first and last touchpoints, with the remaining 20% distributed evenly across the other touchpoints in the middle of the journey.
This model emphasizes the importance of both the initial content that drove awareness and the final content that led to conversion.
Example: A potential customer first interacts with a blog post, follows up by clicking on a social media ad, engages with a video tutorial, and finally converts after receiving a product recommendation email.
In a U-shaped attribution model, 40% of the credit would go to the blog post (first touchpoint), 40% to the email (last touchpoint), and 20% would be split between the ad and video in the middle.
🚩Limitation → This model assumes that the first and last touchpoints are the most important, which may not always be the case. Some middle touchpoints (such as a landing page) may carry more weight in specific customer journeys but are downplayed in this model.
Multi-touch attribution (MTA) is a more advanced and comprehensive model that assigns varying percentages of credit to multiple touchpoints along the customer journey.
Unlike single-touch attribution models like first-touch or last-touch, MTA recognizes that multiple interactions often contribute to a conversion, and each should receive an appropriate share of the credit.
The model can be adjusted to give more weight to the most influential touchpoints, or it can use a more balanced approach depending on the business’s goals.
Example: Imagine a customer’s journey with your content.
They first encounter a blog post, sign up for a newsletter, engage with several social media posts, attend a webinar, and finally convert after seeing a personalized email.
In a multi-touch attribution model, credit would be spread across all these touchpoints based on their importance.
For example, the blog post may get 20% of the credit, the social media posts 15%, the webinar 30%, and the final email 35%.
This way, you can see how different content pieces work together to move customers through the funnel.
🚩Limitation → This model requires more complex modeling and data analysis to determine how much credit each touchpoint should receive.
Recommended → Content Influence in the Buyer Journey
The most important factor when choosing an attribution model is aligning it with your business goals.
Ask the question: What are you trying to achieve with your content?
For example, if your goal is to build brand awareness for a new product launch, a first-touch attribution model can help you identify the content that introduces users to your brand.
However, if your business is aiming to optimize content for driving conversions, a multi-touch model might give you a broader understanding of what content is pushing users to purchase.
Customer journeys can range from relatively short to incredibly complex, depending on your business model.
A B2C eCommerce business might benefit from a last-touch attribution model because conversions often happen quickly after a specific piece of content, like a discount email or social media ad.
On the other hand, a B2B SaaS company with a longer sales cycle might prefer a multi-touch model to capture the influence of white papers, case studies, webinars, and follow-up emails over time.
Recommended → B2B Customer Journey Touchpoints: The Impact of Deal and Company Size
The amount and type of data you can access will play a big role in selecting the right attribution model.
Multi-touch attribution, for instance, requires more detailed data about each customer’s interactions across platforms and devices, while simpler models like first-touch or last-touch can work with more basic data sets.
As you invest in better platforms, you can transition to more advanced models like multi-touch attribution.
The channels you use to reach your audience also influence your choice of attribution model. Some models work better for specific channels or types of content.
For example, a content-heavy company that generates leads through organic search and blogs might lean toward a multi-touch or linear model to capture how blog content nurtures leads over time.
Meanwhile, a company that relies on paid ads to drive immediate conversions might use a time-decay or last-touch model to give more credit to the final interaction.
Advanced attribution models like multi-touch require a more significant investment in tools, data analysis, and marketing resources.
Smaller businesses with limited budgets may opt for simpler models initially, while larger businesses with dedicated teams and more data may benefit from the detailed insights provided by more complex models.
Understanding customer lifecycle, or how long customers take to move through the funnel is important. If customers typically engage with your brand over an extended period, a time decay model may be more beneficial.
This model emphasizes the most recent touchpoints before conversion, giving more credit to touchpoints closer to the final decision.
An audit will help you identify gaps in your content and attribution strategy, as well as determine which content has been performing well. This step sets the foundation for your attribution efforts.
How to Conduct a Content Audit:
Audit Your Attribution Tools:
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → Create a simple scoring system (e.g., 0-5) during your audit. Rank each piece of content on its relevance, performance, and alignment with business goals.
This will make it easier to see which types of content are driving traffic, engagement, or conversions.
Alternatively, you can leverage Gaetano DiNardi’s template:
How Gaetano DiNardi Measures Blog Performance with HockeyStack
Identify what you want to achieve with your content attribution — whether it’s increasing conversions, improving marketing ROI, or refining your B2B marketing strategies.
Key Questions to Ask:
Practical Example: Let’s say your goal is to increase lead generation by 20% in the next quarter. Your attribution model should help you understand which content types (blogs, whitepapers, social media) drive the most leads, so you can double down on those efforts and achieve this objective.
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → Set up micro-conversions (e.g., email sign-ups, social shares, or video views) in addition to macro-conversions (e.g., sales or lead form completions) to get more granular insights into how content engages your audience at different stages of the funnel.
This way, you can measure both immediate engagement and longer-term impact.
Once you’ve audited your current efforts and set clear goals, it’s time to choose the attribution model that best suits your business needs.
Consider the factors discussed earlier, such as your sales cycle length, the complexity of the customer journey, and the resources available for tracking and analysis.
How to Choose the Right Model:
Testing and Adjusting Your Model:
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → Consider using a hybrid attribution model, which combines aspects of multiple models (e.g., first-touch for awareness campaigns and multi-touch for conversions).
This allows you to create a more customized view of your content’s performance without over-committing to one method.
For attribution to work effectively, your tools need to be fully integrated with your marketing tech stack.
A best practice is to set up UTM parameters for all your marketing channels to track content performance accurately. UTM tags can help you identify which specific content or campaigns drive traffic and conversions.
This ensures that every touchpoint—whether it’s a social media post, email, or website interaction—is captured and accounted for in your attribution reports.
How to Integrate Your Tools:
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → Automate cross-platform tracking to help sync data from multiple tools (email, CRM, CMS) into your attribution tool so you never miss a touchpoint in your customer journey.
With your attribution model selected and tools integrated, it’s time to start tracking and analyzing data.
Attribution is only as good as the data you collect, so it’s critical to ensure you’re capturing all relevant touchpoints and interpreting the data accurately.
What to Track:
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → Set up custom dashboards in your attribution tool to get real-time insights into key metrics.
For example, in HockeyStack, you can customize dashboards to track specific KPIs like engagement per content piece or attribution by channel.
This saves you from digging through raw data and allows you to focus on what matters most.
Attribution is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. It requires continuous monitoring and optimization based on the insights you gather.
As you track your content’s performance, you’ll likely discover areas for improvement and new opportunities to enhance your marketing strategy.
How to Optimize Your Strategy:
🔖HockeyStack’s Gem → If you find that a certain type of content or CTA is performing well, test variations to further optimize performance.
For example, if email content is driving conversions, try tweaking subject lines, visuals, or messaging to see if you can boost engagement even more.
A common mistake in attribution is undervaluing top-of-funnel content, such as blog posts, videos, or social media content that generates awareness but doesn’t directly lead to conversions.
Many attribution models, especially last-click attribution, give all the credit to content that directly precedes a conversion, ignoring the critical role of awareness-building content earlier in the customer journey.
Example: Imagine a user first discovers your brand through a blog post, then later engages with multiple pieces of content before finally converting after clicking on an email.
In a last-touch attribution model, only the email would get credit, but without that initial blog post, the customer may have never entered your funnel.
How to Avoid It:
Dark social refers to content shared through private channels, such as email, messaging apps, or word-of-mouth, which are difficult to track.
Additionally, offline touchpoints like in-person events, phone calls, or print media are often left out of attribution models because they don’t generate easily measurable data.
Example: A potential customer may receive a link to one of your blog posts via a private WhatsApp message from a friend.
Because this interaction occurs outside of trackable channels, your attribution tool will miss this touchpoint, skewing your data on content performance.
How to Avoid It:
Relying on just one attribution model can lead to incomplete data and skewed decision-making.
Different models offer different perspectives, and choosing just one may lead you to overlook key insights.
Example: Using first-touch attribution alone might lead a company to overestimate the impact of top-of-funnel content, such as blog posts, and under-invest in middle-of-funnel content, such as case studies or email nurturing.
How to Avoid It:
💡Pro Tip → Use HockeyStack’s attribution testing features to apply multiple models to your data simultaneously.
This allows you to see how different models interpret the same data, giving you a more well-rounded view of content performance.
Attribution data can be complex and easy to misinterpret if not analyzed carefully. Let’s assume the touchpoint with the highest credit in your attribution model is always the most important. This can lead to skewed decisions, especially if you ignore the contributions of other touchpoints.
Example: A marketing team might see that a Facebook ad campaign is receiving the most attribution credit and decide to shift more budget toward it, ignoring the fact that earlier touchpoints like email nurturing are vital in moving leads down the funnel.
How to Avoid It:
A lookback window defines the timeframe in which a customer’s interactions are considered for attribution.
Setting an inappropriate lookback window—either too short or too long—can skew your data. A short window might miss crucial early touchpoints, while a long window could over-credit interactions that have less relevance to the final conversion.
Example: Suppose you set a 7-day lookback window, but your typical sales cycle spans several weeks. Key touchpoints like initial blog posts or webinars, which occurred outside that 7-day period, wouldn’t receive credit in the attribution model. This can lead you to undervalue important content that contributes earlier in the customer journey.
How to Avoid It:
💡Pro Tip → If your customer journey is long and involves multiple touchpoints over months, consider extending your lookback window to 60 or 90 days.
For example, you can use HockeyStack to analyze how conversions occur over time and optimize your lookback window accordingly.
Embed Video → HockeyStack: Attribution Lookback
HockeyStack is purpose-built for SaaS companies looking to gain a clear, data-driven understanding of how their content marketing efforts contribute to conversions and revenue.
Unlike generic attribution tools, HockeyStack goes beyond surface-level metrics, providing in-depth funnel analysis, multi-touch attribution, and real-time insights that are specifically tailored to the SaaS business model.
Say goodbye to content guesswork. With HockeyStack, you can easily identify which pieces of content generate the most demos, trials, customers, pipeline, or revenue.
By focusing your efforts on content that moves the needle, you’ll accelerate demand and drive growth faster — all backed by real, actionable data.
HockeyStack lets you go beyond surface-level insights by enabling you to segment your audience and track how different content influences specific types of buyers.
Whether by company size, industry, account tiers, or custom CRM properties, you’ll gain a clear understanding of what resonates with each cohort, allowing you to tailor your content strategy for maximum impact.
Discover the real value of your content programs by measuring their incremental revenue lift.
HockeyStack gives you the power to compare the impact of different channels — like newsletter subscribers versus non-subscribers, podcast listeners versus non-listeners, and blog readers versus non-readers.
With these insights, you can confidently decide where to increase investment and where to cut back, optimizing your content strategy for growth.
HockeyStack doesn’t just measure pipeline metrics; it tracks content’s influence on a wide range of critical business goals.
From ACV and sales cycle length to customer expansions, you’ll get a full view of how your content drives success across every metric that matters, helping you refine your strategy and hit your targets with confidence.
But why HockeyStack? Simple — we believe content marketing can no longer be a guessing game, especially when your business’s success depends on accurate insights.
We’ve also gone further to prove that you can finally connect the dots between your content and real revenue impact.
“HockeyStack gave us the best of both worlds” — Rowan Tonkin, CMO of Planful
Whether you’re tracking the customer journey from initial blog post interaction to product demo sign-ups or measuring long-term engagement with educational webinars, HockeyStack ensures that every touchpoint is accounted for.
Ready to see how HockeyStack can improve your content marketing?
What exactly is HockeyStack? How do we help marketers drive revenue more efficiently?
Jump in to uncover the ins and outs of Marketing Mix Modeling – from its mechanics to its ideal applications – with Drew.
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