What is Revenue Attribution?
The process of connecting closed revenue back to the marketing and sales touchpoints that influenced the deal.
Definition
Revenue attribution answers a straightforward question: which marketing campaigns and sales activities contributed to this deal closing? It goes beyond lead attribution (which channel generated the lead) to track the full buyer journey across multiple touchpoints. Common models include first-touch, last-touch, linear, time-decay, and data-driven or algorithmic attribution. Each model distributes credit differently, and no single model is perfect.
Why It Matters
Without attribution, marketing can't prove ROI and sales can't identify which activities move deals forward. It determines budget allocation. Teams that can attribute revenue to specific channels and campaigns make better investment decisions. Teams that can't end up funding whatever the loudest executive believes is working.
Example
A $100K deal closes. Revenue attribution shows the buyer first found you through an SEO blog post, attended a webinar, received three outbound emails from the SDR, saw two LinkedIn ads, and had a final demo from the AE. How much credit does each touchpoint get? That's the attribution question.