The persistent arguments between sales and marketing over who "sourced" a deal are the ultimate proof that attribution systems are fundamentally flawed. If these models worked as promised and provided a single source of truth, there would be no debate.

A modern data model revealed marketing influenced over 90% of closed-won revenue, a fact completely obscured by a last-touch attribution system that overwhelmingly credited sales AEs. This shows the 'credit battle' is often a symptom of broken measurement, not just misaligned teams.

A common attribution error is assigning all sales to paid marketing activities. In reality, most brands have a strong "baseline"—sales that would occur even without marketing. Accurate measurement requires modeling this baseline first, then attributing only the incremental lift from campaigns.

Salespeople often project their own ROI calculations onto prospects. Instead, they must ask customers how they measure the effectiveness of past investments. This uncovers what truly matters to them, whether it's net profit, gross revenue, time saved, or even peace of mind.

Instead of chasing quantifiable but often misleading metrics like MQLs or pipeline attribution, focus on qualitative feedback from sales. Successful brand marketing means the sales team enters 'warm rooms' where customers are already familiar with and receptive to the company, eliminating the need to start from zero.

Marketing leaders often sense that attribution models are broken, but they lack the financial language and models to prove it to leadership. The key challenge is moving from "feeling" that a model is wrong to "articulating and demonstrating" why with a cogent financial argument.

While being data-driven is good, seeking a precise mathematical ROI for every initiative is often a fallacy. Many outcomes result from numerous touchpoints (marketing, product, etc.). Obsessing over perfect attribution is unproductive and leads to inter-departmental conflict.

Marketers often equate effectiveness with ad ROI, but communications typically drive only 10% of sales. The other 90% is influenced by levers like pricing, distribution, and product performance. True marketing effectiveness requires a holistic view across all these business areas, not just advertising.

Marketing's true function is probabilistic—it increases the chances of being in the consideration set when a buyer is ready. The common mistake is to measure it deterministically (e.g., this ad led to this sale), creating unrealistic expectations and flawed strategies.