While complex attribution models have their place, a simple field on your forms asking customers how they found you provides invaluable qualitative data. This self-reported information offers a direct line of sight into which channels are truly resonating with your audience and driving action.
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Mailtrap made a multi-step survey a required part of signup. Counterintuitively, this added friction had no negative impact on conversion rates. The collected data on user intent, role, and marketing attribution proved invaluable for segmenting users and focusing on high-value cohorts, informing both product and marketing strategy.
Since platforms like Google and Facebook have a vested interest in overstating their impact within their "walled gardens," a simple, qualitative approach can be more revealing. Adding a "How did you hear about us?" field to your forms provides direct, self-reported data from customers, helping you identify influential channels that complex models might miss.
In the beginning, don't get lost in the weeds of perfect analytics and UTM parameters to track every subscriber source. It's a form of procrastination. For attribution, just add a simple question to your welcome email: "Where did you find the newsletter?" This is all the data you need early on.
Vector's VP of Marketing skipped messy UTMs for her influencer pilot. Instead, she tracked success by setting up alerts in their call recording software (Fathom) for mentions of influencer names, coupled with a "How did you hear about us?" form field.
The question modern attribution should answer is not "Which channel gets credit for this dollar?" but "What are the commonalities across our most successful buying journeys, and how can we replicate them?" This moves from a simplistic, linear view to a more holistic, pattern-based understanding of customer acquisition.
Standard attribution often credits Google due to last-click bias. To find true sources of influence, mandate that the sales team asks every new customer: "How did you *truly* hear about us?" and "Who or what influenced you to sign up *now*?". This reveals the real people and channels driving decisions.
Go beyond standard W-shaped or last-touch attribution models. Create "influence reports" that measure the sheer frequency a channel appears in any revenue-generating journey. This provides a different lens, showing which channels are consistently present and influential, even if they don't get direct attribution credit.
Don't abandon attribution; evolve it. The old model of single-touch software attribution is outdated. A modern approach triangulates data from software (GA4), self-reported forms ("How did you hear about us?"), and conversational intelligence tools, using AI to identify common buying journey patterns.
Relying on UTM link clicks for B2B influencer campaigns is a failing strategy, as social platforms penalize external links and users rarely convert directly. Instead, use a combination of time-series analysis (correlating campaigns to signup spikes) and self-reported attribution on forms to get a more accurate picture of an influencer's impact.
Instead of chasing perfect attribution, recognize that customers will explicitly tell you how they found you. At Drift, prospects on sales calls would frequently mention being fans of their podcast. This qualitative data from the front lines is often the most direct and powerful measure of brand impact.
