Accurate First-Touch/Multi-Touch (FT/MT) Attribution Reporting on Existing Opportunities | Community
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Dan_Stevens_
Dan_Stevens_
Level 10
May 6, 2016
Question

Accurate First-Touch/Multi-Touch (FT/MT) Attribution Reporting on Existing Opportunities

  • May 6, 2016
  • 3 replies
  • 5320 views

As marketers, we play a significant role in influencing existing opportunities, pipeline and sales.  Often time, we're not the ones generating the initial lead (especially for those of us in large organizations who primarily market/sell to existing accounts).  At the same time, it's important to demonstrate marketing's impact on the business.

Currently, we're struggling to report accurately on MT attribution - specifically for those leads that are attached to existing opportunities.  For example, at event, one of marketing's primary objectives is to move existing opportunities along our multi-stage opportunity process.  The way we track these types of event attendees in Marketo is first, we upload the full attendee list to the event program after the event.  And then we change the program status to "Marketing Influenced Opportunity" (a success step) for those applicable leads, send an alert to Marketing Ops, who then attaches the contact record in CRM to the existing opportunity.  Here's where the problem arises: for MT attribution to work, success must happen BEFORE the opportunity is created to get pipeline credit.  In this case, the opportunity already exists - all we're doing is attaching this contact record to the opportunity - and therefore the activity does not appear in our MT attribution reporting.  I'd be interested to learn how some of you deal with this situation.

BTW, we use MS Dynamics as our CRM platform.  Not sure if this even matters in this case.

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    3 replies

    Grégoire_Miche2
    Grégoire_Miche2
    Level 10
    May 6, 2016

    Hi Dan,

    To make sure we are on the same page:

    Here's where the problem arises: for MT attribution to work, success must happen BEFORE the opportunity is created to get pipeline credit.

    Are you talking here about the way Marketo computes MT or how MSD or even a third party reporting tool does it ?

    -Greg

    Dan_Stevens_
    Dan_Stevens_Author
    Level 10
    May 6, 2016

    Hi Greg - that statement is how Marketo computes MT attribution.  These are the FT/MT rules for Marketo:

    Kenny_Elkington
    Adobe Employee
    Kenny_ElkingtonAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    May 6, 2016

    We have the change program success flow step for this reason.  It allows you to change the success date of your program status, to adjust your attribution.

    Dan_Stevens_
    Dan_Stevens_Author
    Level 10
    May 6, 2016

    Kenny, thanks for this.  How should this be used in the overall scheme of things?  For example:

    • If the opportunity was created 6 months ago and the program wasn't even setup until last week?
    • How does this flow step work in relation to existing/prior program statuses?  You wouldn't change the success ("attended") to be dated prior to someone registering for an event.
    Grégoire_Miche2
    Grégoire_Miche2
    Level 10
    May 6, 2016

    Hi Dan,

    If I understand correctly, you are talking here of recent Marketing actions that occur during the opportunity life?

    If so, shouldn't it make sense that this marketing action/program influences the revenue but not the pipeline created ?

    -Greg

    A
    Anonymous
    May 7, 2016

    There should definitely be some more flexability in Marketo to solve this as noted above. Or even develop a seperate set of program progressions designed for lifecycle measurement.

    My thinking keeps coming back to the bigger picture processes and philosophy...."If someone wasnt part of a past oppty, why should their new activity get credit for influencing a older deal?"

    The reasoning is the new event had little to nothing to do with the success of that previous won deal. Of couse, if that person then renews after the event, it should count.

    If you truely want to give credit, this could become more of a process issue of enforcing reps to add people to the opportunity earlier in the Sales process. This doesnt help w net new but it does help w existing people.

    Above being said, maybe your measurement isnt influence in the traditional sense since the event didnt "influence" the past deal. Maybe it's a "money in the room" measurement or whatever you want to call it. Thats extremely valuable for events where your focus can be to get Oppty value to events as opposed to people. Sounds like a good ABM feature. A few third party event platforms are thinking in this area too.

    On another note, I see you have Dynamics. Wanted to ask you a few questions on that at the Summit.See you next weekq

    Dan_Stevens_
    Dan_Stevens_Author
    Level 10
    May 7, 2016

    Hey Jeff - thanks for chiming in here.  In our case, we have very long sales cycles (often > 6 months).  We also have a complex opportunity process that consists of 5 stages.  Someone could be in one of those early-mid stages and our role, as Marketing, is to help progress those leads to closed-won business.  Let's say we have a digital transformation opportunity, which includes a complete website redesign using a new CMS (e.g., Sitecore) and integration with best-in-class marketing platforms like Marketo.  We may choose to to invite them to the Marketo Summit and host them at a client workshop/dinner.  These activities are very relevant to help move this customer of ours to later opportunity stages.  This is actually very common with a lot of our deals.  We are also very event-heavy - and not big conferences/tradeshows, but rather client intimacy events, full-day Innovation days, etc.

    Look forward to connecting with you next week in Vegas!

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