Choosing a B2B attribution model: a decision checklist

Choosing a B2B attribution model: a decision checklist

The question: which attribution model — the rule for assigning credit across the touchpoints before a sale — fits your sales motion, before you trust a single dashboard number?

The models, and when each misleads:
— First-touch: credits the channel that started the journey. Inflates top-of-funnel content; useless for long B2B cycles.
— Last-touch: credits the final click. Over-credits branded search and demo-request pages.
— Linear: splits credit evenly. Simple, but pretends every touch mattered equally.
— Time-decay: weights recent touches heavier. Reasonable for 30-60 day cycles.
— Position-based (40/20/40): rewards first and last touch.

The checklist to pick one:
— Is your sales cycle over 90 days? Avoid last-touch.
— Do you have 50+ closed-won deals per quarter? Below that, any multi-touch model is statistically noisy.
— Can you actually capture every touch, including dark social? If not, no model is accurate.

Limitations: all click-based attribution is blind to offline and private touches. With small deal volume, model choice swamps real signal. Treat outputs as directional.

What it means for B2B: the model is a lens, not truth — pick the one whose blind spot you can live with.

Bottom line: choose your distortion deliberately rather than inheriting your tool's default.