“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

Department store owner, John Wanamaker succinctly put into words the frustration of every marketer looking for a reliable lead attribution model.

When he said this over 100 years ago, he must not have expected it to remain relevant a century later! The challenge of latching down on an accurate way to measure the effectiveness of marketing in closing a sale has been unresolved for a long time.

Much research has gone into demystifying the buyer funnel and closely monitoring the journey from first contact to conversion, yet precise attribution still evades marketers. Let’s look at attribution and its challenges a little more closely.