Single‑touch attribution is simple and misleading. Modern B2B journeys span hundreds to thousands of touches across people, channels, and months. RevSure customers are moving to multi‑touch attribution (MTA) and AI‑based attribution to make better budget, program, and pipeline decisions. This post explains the path they take, the models they use, and the best practices that stick.

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Why the Shift? “One Touch to Rule Them All” Doesn’t Work

A modern mid‑market or enterprise GTM motion is complex. First‑touch or last‑touch alone over‑simplifies reality and drives inaccurate reporting and poor decisions.
RevSure analyzes journeys where a single Closed‑Won deal may have 600–3,000+ touchpoints—not counting thousands of non‑attributed activities. When journeys are that long and multi‑threaded, it’s unrealistic to claim the “first” or “last” touch did the job.

Would you be comfortable:

• Turning off all marketing that rarely gets a first touch?
• Allocating budget only by first‑touch share?
  

Of course not. That’s why leading teams move beyond single‑touch.

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Using Multi‑Touch Attribution (MTA)

Attribution is a journey—and where you start matters. If you’ve lived in single‑touch reports, the path to MTA requires socialization across:

• Tactics (channel and program owners)
• Strategy (exec team and board reporting)
  

The goal is not a one‑size‑fits‑all model, but a portfolio of models aligned to your audience (board vs. team), funnel stage (TOFU/MOFU/BOFU), data quality, and decisions you need to make.

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How RevSure Customers Make the Leap (in 5 Practical Steps)

1. Socialize that change is coming‍

Single‑touch neither improves decisions nor outcomes. Set expectations that multi‑touch and AI will better reflect reality.

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2. Show journey maps by Opportunity Type‍

In RevSure, visualize how many touches and how long it takes to move from Lead → Closed‑Won, Upsell, etc. This quickly shows why single‑touch falls short.

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3. Run incrementality (Lift) and probability (Next Best Action) tests

• Lift tests surface the campaigns/channels that actually correlate with Closed‑Won.
• Funnel Conversion Attribution (FCA) estimates the probability that a channel or campaign will move a record to the next stage—your Next Best Action (NBA) signal.

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4. Insight‍

By this point, most teams see that their funnel is multi‑threaded and that “what worked” historically is not always “what will work” next.

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5. Compare rules‑based MTA with AI‑based models‍

Don’t expect perfect agreement—embrace the complexity. Use convergence across lift, NBA, and attribution models to drive decisions with confidence.

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6. Pick models by audience and purpose‍

You can (and often should) use different models for board reporting, channel optimization, and stage‑specific analysis. Include single‑touch views where they help answer narrow questions, but let multi‑touch and AI steer high‑impact decisions. When you’re ready, layer in Market Mix Modeling (MMX) to handle longer‑horizon, top‑down budget questions.

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What We See Work in the Field (Best Practices)

Pipeline / ROI Perspective

• Use a multi‑touch model as your balanced source of truth for campaign/channel effectiveness. RevSure supports a full range of rules‑based (e.g., Linear, U‑shaped, W‑shaped) and AI‑based approaches.
• Test models against your gut, Lift, and NBA signals.
• Consider stage‑aligned views:
  
  • Top of funnel (paid): First Touch can be helpful to measure true “source.”
  • Middle of funnel: W‑shaped or Linear to reflect shared influence.
  • Bottom of funnel: Last Touch to capture final conversion catalysts.
  • Cross‑funnel channels: Linear is “fair” and transparent.
• When opportunity ↔ contact mapping is spotty, use Account‑Based (ABM) attribution for pipeline and revenue.
  
  

If you must pick one rules‑based model for enterprise motions, W‑shaped is a strong default: it captures first, key middle, and last touches, with 10% shared across the rest.

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Influence Perspective

Complex GTM motions can’t be fully captured by a single causality chain. Many RevSure customers complement MTA with influence models to show the full set of touches that participated, even when they weren’t first or last.

• Use Any Touch / Influenced Attribution to report Influenced Pipeline across all campaigns and channels.
  

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Events & BOFU Programs: Accelerate the Deal Cycle

• Influenced Attribution for Events: Report the $ value of deals touched by the event that converted. In RevSure’s Demand Generation Effectiveness view, switch the Attribution dropdown to Influenced to see Booking ROI for the event.
• Post‑Opportunity/Pipeline MTA (supported in RevSure): Attribute only the touches after the Opportunity is created to understand which campaigns accelerate pipeline to Closed‑Won. Use W‑shaped or Linear for this post‑opportunity lens.
  

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RevSure MTA Models: What They Do & When to Use Them

* Objects vary by CRM setup; RevSure supports the standard objects listed.

Tip: Use different models for different decisions. For example, board decks: W‑shaped + AI. Channel ops: First‑Touch (sourcing) + Post‑Opp W‑shaped (acceleration). Content/program teams: Linear (coverage) + Lift/NBA (what to do next).

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How MTA and MMX Work Together

• MTA (bottom‑up) connects touches to conversions for near‑term optimization.
• MMX (top‑down), an AI‑driven statistical method, estimates channel/program contribution to outcomes even when touchpoints are missing (e.g., brand, offline, dark social), and supports budget allocation, forecasting, and scenario planning.
  

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Putting It All Together: A Simple Adoption Plan

1. Baseline: Keep single‑touch for continuity, but stop using it as the primary decision lens.
2. Educate: Share journey maps and “touch count” metrics by segment/opp type.
3. Experiment: Run Lift + NBA tests; pilot Linear and W‑shaped for a quarter.
4. Adopt AI: Add AI‑based attribution and compare to rules‑based + Lift/NBA.
5. Scale: Standardize reporting by audience (board vs. ops) and add MMX for planning.
   

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What You’ll Gain with RevSure

• Truth across the journey: See the real contributors to each stage, pipeline, and revenue.
• Actionability: Turn NBA insights into concrete next steps for SDRs, marketing, and sales.
• Confidence with complexity: Align exec and team views without forcing false simplicity.
• Faster cycles: Use post‑opportunity MTA to double down on programs that accelerate deals.
• Clear event ROI: Switch to Influenced to understand event impact on bookings.
  

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Ready to see your real funnel? Book a RevSure demo and we’ll show you how customers are upgrading from single‑touch to a portfolio of rules‑based and AI models—and using them to grow pipeline and revenue with confidence.