Your attribution is missing 50% touchpoints

Hey, Paige here!

Before we get into today’s best marketing research… 

In today’s release: 

• The major conversion drivers that aren’t showing up in your attribution

• 50% of B2B pros actually want ads in their personal time? 

• Building a funnel tracker that shines a light on dark funnel and zero-click leads

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DEEP DIVE

Think LinkedIn and Google tell the whole story of your buyer's journey? 

Think again. Here's the reality check you need about measuring marketing success in 2025.

Your buyers are everywhere — and I mean everywhere. 50% are consuming business content during their Netflix binges, and 83% are doing deep research before your sales team even knows they exist. 

The kicker? 

Most of these touchpoints are invisible to traditional tracking.

👻 Where your buyers are really hanging out

The Podcast Revolution: 44.2% of Americans are podcast fans (up over 23% in the last 3 years), and these aren't just true-crime enthusiasts — we're talking decision-makers with budgets. 

But good luck tracking that attribution!

Connected TV Takeover: 73% of B2B marketers are jumping into CTV because — surprise! — over 50% of your buyers actually want to see business ads during their downtime. 

But that living room influence? It's not showing up in your dashboards.

The Dark Social Effect: Those private Slack conversations and LinkedIn DMs where your content gets shared? 

Pure attribution blindspots, but they're driving major decisions.

🚨 Traditional attribution simply isn’t enough

Most marketers still rely on last-click attribution or lead-source reporting to measure success.

But the reality? Buyers don’t follow a neat, trackable journey anymore. (Did they ever really?)

By the time a buyer fills out a form, they’ve already been influenced by multiple touchpoints you can’t measure.

Traditional attribution models ignore these key influence channels, leading marketers to undervalue high-impact, top-of-funnel activities.

Pssst — this is why I always cross-check our CRMs attribution with self-reported and encourage my stellar sales counterparts to ask prospects directly on calls. The gaps between reported attribution and actual touchpoints? Mindblowing 🤯

💡 Solution time: Rethinking attribution 

Since we can’t track everything, what can we do? Here’s your gameplan to capture the full picture:

✅ Ask buyers how they found you – Add a "How did you hear about us?" field to your forms. You’ll be shocked how many say: “Saw you on LinkedIn” (even if it wasn’t from your company page), “Heard about you on a podcast,” or “A colleague sent me your article.”

✅ Shift from last-click to multi-touch attribution – While no model is perfect, tools like self-reported attribution, weighted attribution, and marketing mix modeling (MMM) provide a clearer picture of what’s working.

✅ Track engagement trends, not just clicks – Look at brand search volume, direct traffic spikes, and talk to your dang sales team to learn more about what prospects are actually experiencing in their discovery journey. 

✅ Play the long game – Instead of obsessing purely over lead capture, build long-term influence through thought leadership, community engagement, and high-value content.

The takeaway: Attribution isn’t a linear game. The B2B buyer’s journey is happening in invisible channels — and if you’re not intentional in your tracking, you’ll miss what’s actually driving conversions and your strategy will suffer.