topic Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships in 💬 RevOps Discussions

Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

JKremer9 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 13:47:14 GMT

Hi everyone,

We're looking for recommendations to better organize attribution in Hubspot with a strong SaaS partnerships and marketing motion.

So how would we ideally organize the primary source and subsource when we do a lot of partner marketing activities, like co-sponsored events or webinars. Right now we have to pick either Partner or Marketing, which causes a lot of friction internally.

We don't really get a proper solution yet as we're not completely sure how it works best in Hubspot.

Any insights from companies or teams who've nailed this in a way that aligns internal teams.

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

SamTassey — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:51:00 GMT

Hi @JKremer9!

Thank you for posting in the Community! I see that you're looking for more granular data on how your contacts or leads are soured. I've included a couple of resources below that you may find helpful!

This detailed community post - A SaaS B2B attribution guide on HubSpot - Level 01 may offer a helpful framework for structuring your source data.
For a more technical breakdown of our default source properties, we can take a look at our documentation on the matter here!

I'm going to loop in a few of our experts here as well in case they have any additional suggestions for you!

@karstenkoehler, @danmoyle, and @TomM2

Hope this helps!

Sam, Community Moderator

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

JKremer9 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:58:28 GMT

Thanks @SamTassey , those resources are helpful!

It's indeed how contacts and leads are sourced, and eventually to understand what sources drive pipeline. We have primary sources: partner, marketing, sales, refer and are considering adding partner marketing to remove the friction between partner & marketing as there's a lot of joint GTM activities. On the subsource I still want to add marketing specific sources for each primary source like paid social, paid search, events etc. That doesn't seem to make sense for the others internally and they think that should just be tracked with UTMs.

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

danmoyle — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:23:26 GMT

Hi @JKremer9! That's a big question for sure. A lot of folks work on this and have all kinds of ideas. Hopefully a few drop in here to help.

Here's a bit of advice from me. First, I'd make sure to deeply understand HubSpot's attribution between its web analytics (Original Source, Latest Source, etc.) and Campaigns.

Now, depending on how you're sourcing leads beyond marketing efforts and website visitors, you may be instituting some manual efforts like Custom Properties and processes for the team. If that's the case, you'll want to uUse a hierarchical setup with Primary Source (a custom property) as the top-level category (examples could include Partner, Marketing, Sales, Referral) and Subsource for granular details (Breaking it down like: Co-sponsored Webinar, Paid Social, Event).

This resolves friction by allowing "Partner Marketing" as a primary source dedicated to joint GTM activities like co-sponsored events or webinars, while subsources capture specifics across categories.

I have seen through the year how some teams with strong SaaS partnerships create "Partner Marketing" as a distinct primary source to unify joint efforts, avoiding debates over ownership. Subsourses then layer on tactics like "Partner Webinar" or "Co-sponsored Event," captured via UTM parameters on forms and workflows that copy values from contacts to deals.

Then for reporting on attribution, you can use HubSpot's attribution reports (Reports > Attribution) with UTM and asset dimensions to analyze revenue by source/subsource combinations. Custom dashboards group by "Partner Marketing" to show pipeline from joint activities, fostering internal buy-in.

You can up the game and associate partners via custom objects (Enterprise tier needed) linked to deals for multi-deal visibility and commission tracking, as seen in partner portal setups.

Hope that helps a bit!

P.S. Ryan Gunn is a great follow for this. He's always sharing some great advice and insights when it comes to attribution in HubSpot.

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

RubenBurdin — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:20:18 GMT

Hi @JKremer9 , you’re running into a very real and very common attribution tension, especially in SaaS teams with mature partner motions. The friction you’re describing usually comes from mixing two different jobs into one set of properties.

One thing that helps a lot, with how HubSpot works today, is to clearly separate “ownership context” from “acquisition mechanics.” Primary Source is best used as an internal alignment and reporting lever, not as a reflection of every tactic used. In that sense, adding “Partner Marketing” as its own primary source is often the right move. It creates a neutral bucket for joint GTM activities and removes the constant debate of Partner vs Marketing without losing accountability.

Where teams get stuck is trying to make subsources do too much. In practice, subsources work best when they describe the nature of the motion, not the channel plumbing. For partner-led or partner-marketed motions, subsources like “Co-marketing,” “Partner Webinar,” or “Sponsored Event” tend to land better internally than channel-style values like Paid Social or Paid Search. The channel detail still absolutely belongs somewhere, just not always in the same property.

That’s where UTMs and campaigns quietly do the heavy lifting. UTMs capture how someone actually arrived, while your Primary Source and Subsource explain why the motion exists and who owns it. HubSpot’s attribution reports are designed to combine these layers, especially when you lean on Campaigns for revenue reporting instead of trying to encode everything into a single property (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/understand-attribution-reporting )

One sanity check I often suggest is this: if Sales is looking at pipeline by source, does this structure tell a clean story without explanation? If yes, you’re close. If it needs a legend, it’s probably over-modeled.

Sounds like you’re already on the right path. This is more about governance and agreement than tooling. Hope this helps a bit.

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

JKremer9 — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:12:08 GMT

Hi @RubenBurdin Thanks so much for the feedback, its super helpful and adding the partner marketing source with these subsources is actually what I suggested internally to move towards. Super happy to get some confirmation that this is a move in the right direction!

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

JKremer9 — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:13:26 GMT

Hi @danmoyle Thanks so much for the feedback! I also mentioned to Ruben that adding a Partner Marketing sources and related subsources is exactly the solution I was thinking about. It's great to confirmation that this is a move in the right direction. Definitely also following Ryan, super useful tips.

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

SamTassey — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:56:33 GMT

Hi @JKremer9,

Happy to hear things are moving forward! Thanks so much to @RubenBurdin and @danmoyle for jumping in with those tips.

Seeing everyone help each other out like this is truly what the Community is all about! Thank you!

Sam, Community Manager

Re: Recommendations for attribution marketing & partnerships

danmoyle — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 19:08:33 GMT

Thank you @SamTassey and all the HubSpot Community folks for helping shepherd the culture of giving and assistance!