topic A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01) in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 14:55:38 GMT

A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot!

I've been asked to make this step-by-step guide and I felt that it would be more helpful if shared here in the community.

If you are wondering out how to get started with HubSpot Custom Attribution, this post’s for you. I’ve covered the steps to get the bases of a custom attribution structure and you can define how deep you want to go on those 3 levels:

Level 01 • How to customise the original source data - Done

Level 02 • Build a multi-touch linear model - Done

Level 03 • Set your flexible Hubspot structure - WIP

L01 • How to customise the original source data

Step 1: Understand how source properties work.

Source properties tell you where your contacts come from (channels). Hubspot has 2 main properties with two different proposes: the Original Source tells you the first conversion of that specific contact and the Latest Source shows the most recent one (in case of a singular conversion those 2 properties will have the same data).

For each one of those source properties there are 2 drill-down properties that give you additional information about the source through which a contact interacted with your business.

Example:

Original source: Paid social

Original drill-down 1: Facebook

Original drill-down 2: the name of the Facebook ad campaign.

In this first level we’ll only focus on the Original Source. If you want to know more about it, take a look at this Hubspot article.

Step 2: Define the channels you want to focus on

If you’re reading this article it’s because you’re not happy about the standard data that Hubspot provides you, so take a look at this example and select the channels that make sense for your operation.

Note: It’s important to understand that we’re not defining the criteria for our workflow in this step. We’re only listing all the channels we want to track

Example:

Step 3: Select columns and export all contacts

3.1) Just go to your contacts > Table actions > Edit Columns > Clean everything > Select Original Source + Drill-down 1 + Drill-down 2 properties

3.2) On the same view > Table actions > Export view > File format: XLSX > Properties included in export: Only properties in the view

Step 4: Clean your spreadsheet and define criteria

Now that you have all your contacts exported just open your spreadsheet (use excel, google spreadsheet usually gets slow with that much data).

Be sure you just have what you need and delete all extra data such as Contact ID, email and so on, then select all 3 columns (Original Source, Drill-down 1, Drill-down 2) and remove duplicates.

Now that you have your data in order, create a new column with your custom property name (i.e: Lead Acquisition Channel) and let's start to define the criterias. A smart move should be to filter everything, go one Original Source at the time and start with the ones from Inbound, since they have less options it’s easier to get used to this process.

Your spreadsheet would look like this:

Few tips about defining source properties:

1) If a channel you want don’t match with any data provided it could be because no one converted through that source or because it’s not an automatically populated source and you are not setting your UTMs correctly

1.1) Automatically populated properties:

Organic Search:

- Hubspot defines automatically each search engine on the Original Source Drill-down 2

Paid Search:

- When you don’t have nothing on drill-down 1 it’s search ads, when you have an ID on drill-down 2 it’s display ads

Organic Social + Paid Social:

- Hubspot defines automatically each search engine on the Original Source Drill-down 1

Email Marketing:

- It could be an acquisition source if someone forwards your marketing campaign to someone else or if someone sends an email marketing campaign redirecting to one of your conversion points.

Direct Traffic:

- This one could be tricky so be aware when you have a big volume of leads coming from direct traffic.

Case 01: Since some widgets are not able to communicate with Hubspot it would read as Direct Traffic but it has other sources. Example: someone that got to your page by organic search but converts on a pop-up on the page (if it’s a weird widget) it will show as Direct Traffic instead of Organic Search

Case 02: When one of your teams sends a link for their meetings calendar it will show as Direct Traffic but you probably want to track that as a custom channel as (Field Sales or Outbound Operations)

Referrals:

- As you should expect here things get pretty messy because you’ll have tons of options. So it’s really important to set ONLY criteria on Referrals Source if they have data on one of the drill-down options by that you’ll be able to always track new referrals and understand who/what is referring to your pages

Different type of options that could appear in here:

- Referrals from your product/mobile app

- Online Press (Organic or Paid)

- Search Engines

- Co-marketing partnerships

- Marketplaces

- Pages of events you’ll be

1.2) Non-automatically populated properties:

Other Campaigns:

- This option will be set by your own parameters on UTMs so it always depend on what you’re doing, if you’re in doubt which channel you should set on a specific criteria remember that you can set it as “Other Referrals” (if you use the list of channels I showed on the example)

Offline Sources:

- A source that is populated only by human action (someone from your team sending an email and logging the contact by hubspot email extension, creating a new contact on the platform, importing a list of contacts, launching an email sequence for a specific contact, or even reading a business card on Hubspot Mobile App). So you really need to understand how your operation works to set criteria on this.

Example: probably the only use for business-card-scanner will be on events so if it’s the case of your team you can select that as a criteria for a Lead Acquisition Channel.

Now save your spreadsheet with love, you’ll need it in a few steps!

Step 5: Have a break and create both properties

Go to settings > properties > create property:

Do the same for the property Lead Acquisition Channel

Step 06: Flow the workflow, let's launch this!

You're now able to build your new best friend! Go to workflow > Create workflow > Contact-based > Blank workflow > Give a name that your team understands that they don’t should touch, something as STRUCTURE - Lead Acquisition Channels Definition.

Things you need to be aware before doing this workflow:
- Since it’s focused only on acquisition (first conversion) it shouldn’t have a re-enrolment trigger

- Time to time Hubspot take few more seconds to have all data sorted out so it’s safer to have a 1 minute delay right after the trigger

- This workflow needs to be updated through time so you should build it on an organised and easier structure

Trigger: Original Source is Known
Delay for a set amount of time: 1 minute
If/then branch: 1 branch per original source
So it would be easier to navigate through the workflow

Go to each individual branch and split it (with If/then branch) by the criteria you’ve defined

Friendly Tip: If you’ve a lot of criterias for the same channel on your spreadsheet, create a new column > use this formula [=THECELLYOUWANT&”;”] set it in all your options > copy the data from that column > and Hubspot will divide in each option (examples below)

Now that you have all sub-branches defined click on the (+) sign > Set property value > Select your Lead Acquisition Channel property and choose the channel that makes sense, then make the same for the property Lead Acquisition Property.

Friendly Tip: Make this step on the first option then go to Actions > Clone > This action and all after it. It will be easier but you need to be sure you always change the channel and the ownership if needed.

Your sub-branch should look something like this:

Launch your workflow and be sure you enrol existing contacts who meet the trigger

Step 07: Build an error view

Go to contacts > Table Actions > Clean the columns > Add all source properties + Lead Acquisition Channel > Then go to More filters > Set Original Source: Known + Lead Acquisition Channel: Unknown > Apply Filters > Save View

With this view you’re able to check on your routines if something goes wrong with the definition of your custom channels and make decisions about it. If something appears a lot it could make sense to build a specific channel just for it, if not set as it makes sense.

It’s time to check what you’ve done, feel free to build reports around it. Just some ideas:

Understand if your operation achieved or not the monthly goal and see the ownership of each Group Channel (for any stage of your customer journey)
Try to understand the behave of each channel on specific industries or markets
Check the quality of the contacts acquired in each channel
(...) Be creative

Soon I’ll share how to build a structure with two attribution factors (Level 02) and how to have a totally flexible structure to choose the attribution model as you want (Level 03) - Follow me to keep updated 🙂

For the new Hubspoters please share feedback if you got lost in any step I want to improve this article! For the more experienced ones feel free to share more ideas on how to develop a custom attribution framework. Keep being awesome 💪

Betreff: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

MiaSrebrnjak — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 17:49:03 GMT

Thank you for posting @jforte!

Cheers
Mia, Community Team

Betreff: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 17:58:41 GMT

Thanks for the kudos @MiaSrebrnjak For the next 2 posts I'll share, is "Tips, Tricks & Best Practices" the best place to do it?

Betreff: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

MiaSrebrnjak — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 22:09:11 GMT

Of course, this is a great article! 👍

Yep, "Tips, Tricks & Best Practices" is the best place for such content - thank you so much for sharing the knowledge!

Mia

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

Moncat — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:12:45 GMT

Hey José! This is super valuable!

Got some followup questions...

I’m a bit stuck on defining the ”lead acquisition channel” criteria for: Direct traffic- should I just name it direct traffic then? We have a lot of that.

On the offline sources, is it really necessary that I specify what type of channel it is? If it’s import or sequence, or email extension- how would that benefit in the end?? For me it’s very tempting to just call it outbound 😄 Would it be good in the end for sales to measure for themselves what is getting most results?

On referrals- what naming do you use there? I can’t find anything coming from our marketplaces- they have been recently updated by our product marketing. I guess I just wait? Until I can name it?

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:20:12 GMT

Nice! So:

1) Direct Traffic have 2 meanings:

a) People that really a visitor typed your website URL

b) Token/cookie tracking disabled (i.e: someone that converts on a meetings calendar or a pop-up and Hubspot is not able to track their source In case (a) I really advice you to set as direct traffic channel (for example nowadays we make tons of brand awareness campaigns so it's common to have a large number of people typing our website directly) in case (b) create an error view on contacts with filter as [original or latest source: direct traffic and drill-down 2 not EXACTLY: "yourwebsite.com" so you're able to see "direct traffic" from really big url paths and that is not that usual so you can check if you have something there not working correctly

2) Offline Sources - Nowadays I have a really big drill-down on Offline sources because our Outbound and Field Sales Teams use Hubspot but if you don't have a similar structure you can make something simple as: If they are coming from email extension or hubspot crm they are outbound; if they are coming from hubspot mobile app (business card reader) it's probably someone from your sales team on an event doing field sales

3) On referrals it could be nice to look into the source drill-down and understand if you have some online magazine/marketplace redirecting to your website - If you're using UTMs on those marketplaces all the conversions will appear on "Other Campaings" and not referrals 🙂

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 15:01:08 GMT

Hey @Moncat @MiaSrebrnjak @PamCotton @sharonlicari @TitiCuisset just to share that I already shared the Level 02 • Build a multi-touch linear model.

It would be awesome to get your feedback💪

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

AHanno9 — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:55:49 GMT

This is super helpful!

I am curious how you treat cold leads in HubSpot that a sales team pulls into Salesforce from Zoom Info.

Right now, leads that are added to our Salesforce from Zoom Info are pushed into HubSpot via integration and their HubSpot Original Source shows up as “Created from Offline Sources from Salesforce." So even if they're uploaded in bulk and never touched, we don't have a clear picture of what may have actually sparked their initial engagement with us.

Example:

100 contacts from a target account are downloaded from ZoomInfo and added to salesforce
These are pushed from Salesforce to Hubspot and their Source is marked as Offline Sources
10 of them that are never pursued or contacted by sales engage with our ads as a true first engagement and convert

In cases like this, how are you determining that the paid ad was the source that created the engagement?

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:07:00 GMT

Hey @AHanno9 thanks for the kudos 🙂

Regarding what you asked we're talking about a new dimension of attribution that I call indirect attribution - as I understand you're doing demand gen campaigns to contacts from target accounts because of that you import a lots of contacts from those that even not having any contact with sales get as acquisition channel [Field Sales or Outbound Campaigns] only because they came from Salesforce.

First of all set rules to your sales team:
a) Only add contacts to Hubspot you if you'll launch a campaign in less than X days
b) As marketing is being evaluated for the quality of leads that send to a Sales Dev Team also Sales (of course with other criteria) should be evaluated. If you import 1000 contacts to Hubspot and just get reply from 1 you're not doing Field Sales or Outbound Campaigns you are just spamming and that bring to your company - Brand Damage; Higher Costs in Hubspot; Worse Domain Rate
c) If you integrate Hubspot to your ads platforms and than use a solution as Clearbit or RollWorks (Data Activation Platforms) you're able to set "identify calls" to anonymous prospects. Than as soon as they convert Hubspot will push that data (in most of the cases) so you know if they had any interaction with your ads in the past.

I'll try to launch the next chapter of this guide until the end of this month/begin of Sep and I'll explain how to do it - In the meanwhile take a look on the talk I've made to HUG London about all dimensions - https://video.whitehat-seo.co.uk/attribution-reporting-tracked-from

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

Shiva2000 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:22:56 GMT

what are the workflows we can done in Starter plan and is it feasible for the SMB's?

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

jforte — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:42:31 GMT

Hey @Shiva2000 it seems you need at least the Marketing Hub pro plan to have workflows. Anyway check the pricing list here and don't forget that Hubspot has tons of plans for early stage startups (with discounts) see if it's something that fits your needs 🙂

Best of luck,

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

HJack9 — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 13:42:02 GMT

Thank you for providing such a clear explanation; this guide is invaluable. In fact, we experienced a similar situation a few months ago when attempting to match our outbound efforts with HubSpot attribution.

We were using Voltic Agency to help us with B2B cold outreach at the time, and they encouraged us to reconsider the way we were tracking leads across various touchpoints. Without altering the structure, their team came up with a creative way to map cold email responses into HubSpot's unique attribution models. Although it wasn't plug-and-play, it was very helpful to us in getting more accurate reporting linked to particular outreach initiatives.

This kind of custom attribution is essential if you're using outbound in your mix.

Re: A SaaS(sy) B2B attribution guide on Hubspot! (Level 01)

chighsmith — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 14:31:54 GMT

Hi @HJack9,

Thank you for sharing your experience! It’s always helpful to hear real-world examples of how others are tackling attribution challenges, especially when it comes to outbound initiatives.

We appreciate your insights and totally agree: custom attribution can make a huge difference for teams using outbound strategies!

-Cassie
Community Manager