What is Attribution?

Attribution is the process of working out what actions resulted in traffic, leads and customers.

Accurate attribution allows businesses to make informed decisions about where to allocate focus and money.

The problem for many businesses is they don't know what is working.

They can't accurately attribute results to their source eg 'did this customer come from Google Ads, or Facebook, or an email we sent?'

Spotting Attribution Issues

There are a few easy signals that we can use to highlight that a business likely has an attribution problem.

[1] Poorly set up analytics

Some businesses don't even have the basic tools in place eg Google Analytics.

But assuming they at least have Google Analytics setup, there are a few quick ways to check for issues:

traffic reports are really low (Eg hardly any visits)
engagement is problematic (eg really low bounce rate)

Another signal is if there are no goals set up, or the goals aren't working (eg were set up years ago but no longer apply).

[2] Direct Traffic

A common issue for many businesses is outsized Direct traffic stats. If Direct Traffic is the largest source of traffic/leads, there's likely an attribution problem.

[3] Social traffic

Social traffic is also easy to misattribute.

For example, if a business knows they are paying for Google Ads or Facebook ads but they don't see it showing as Paid social in reports (eg it might be turning up in Organic social or Direct).