Which Marketo Measure (fka Bizible) Attribution Mapping Methodology Should I Use?

[Kate_Colbert]

Ever wondered how Marketo Measure (fka Bizible) decides which Contact records are eligible for Attribution credit for a given Opportunity?

There are 3 options: 

1. Account ID —> This is Marketo Measure’s most “inclusive” method as it looks at all Contacts who are tied to the Account that the Opportunity is tied to.
2. Contact Roles —> This only looks at Contacts who are defined as Contact Roles on the Opportunity. It is a more selective option.
3. Primary Contact Roles —> This is similar to the above option, but it’s only looking at Contacts who are marked as the Primary Contact Role on the Opportunity. Therefore, the most selective option. Note that SFDC will only allow ONE contact to be marked as the Primary. 

More information can be found here.

All Marketo Measure accounts are originally set to Account ID out of the box, but whether or not that is the best choice for your business might depend on a few factors. 

The majority of users stick with Account ID since it is so inclusive and ensures that all Contacts tied to Account can be eligible for attribution credit. Moreover, the attribution is applied automatically because Marketo Measure isn’t reliant on anything being set on the Opportunity like Contact Roles, for example. For Organizations that are not using Contact Roles, it is best to remain with the Account ID methodology. If Contact Roles aren’t being set consistently and you do choose to use the Contact Role method, you risk losing attribution on any opportunities where Contact Roles are not applied.

Now on the other hand, if your org does have a reliable strategy for assigning Contact Roles, it makes more sense to consider using Contact Role mapping instead of the Account ID methodology. However, remember that since the Contacts have to be set as Contact Roles in order for Marketo Measure to look at them for Attribution credit — you still could miss out on people influencing that Opportunity as there could be more than just those who are marked as Contact Roles. Just something to think carefully about! 

The main reason I see clients using Contact Roles is when they are selling into one company but maybe into several different Business Units. If there are completely different people involved in the different Opportunities for the different Business Units, you don’t want there to be overlap in terms of the Contacts and their Touchpoints across the different Opps. Quick example: If you are selling into an EMEA org and also an APAC org within the same company but both are separate in terms of the teams you are working with/product you’re selling/Opp amount/etc, you don’t want Touchpoints from EMEA Contacts to decorate the APAC Opportunity and vice versa. The solution here is to carefully use Contact Roles so that Marketo Measure knows it can’t just look at all Contacts on the Account, only those you are deliberately setting as Contact Roles on each Opportunity. 

Questions to consider: 

1. Does your org use Contact Roles?
2. If you do use Contact Roles, are they being set consistently? What percentage of the time?
   • Who is responsible for setting them? Is there a defined process?
3. What type of Accounts/Opportunities are common? 
   • Is it common to have one Account but then several Opps for different Business Units?
   • Do you commonly have single buyers? Buying committees?
     
     

Keep in mind that you can always change your attribution mapping method and Marketo Measure will reprocess your data and allocate attribution accordingly! You don’t want to change this all the time of course because it can take a bit of time to reprocess all the data. This is useful though if maybe you need to use the Account ID method before switching to Contact Roles because you need some time to properly train your Sales team first.

Last updated 4/5/2024

[Grant_Barton]

Hi @Kate_Colbert ,

Very helpful article! This topic is top of my mind for me and the considerations that you outlined are insightful.

My company's business sells into one large account but to several different departments / units frequently. We are finding that there is overlap between in terms of  the Contacts and their Touchpoints across the different Opportunities. Unfortunately, our account managers do not have a rigid strategy or process for assigning contact roles to an opportunity. If we were to enact a process, it would be an up-hill battle and may take sometime. Most of our opportunities do have get a primary contact assigned though.

With the Account ID methodology, do you know if any filters, tips, or tricks in BAT with opportunities reports to mitigate help eliminate the overlap overlap of contacts and irrelevant touchpoints across opportunities?

Given our org's selling to many large institutions / accounts across different business units and department's and the lack of process with assigning contact roles, does it make sense to move to an Account ID to Primary Contact Role approach?  

My preference would be to make the Account ID methodology work and ideally (if possible) tweak the reports to ensure more relevant touchpoints are getting credit for certain opportunities.

[Kate_Colbert]

Hey @Grant_Barton -- good question, I totally see the challenge. 

To your point, contact roles would solve for this but as you identified, it can be a challenge to ensure they're consistently being leveraged. The same challenge would be true for a primary contact role approach too. 

Do you have any fields on thee Opportunity that identify the different business units/departments? Maybe even just the Opportunity Type field? I'm asking because without switching to Contact Roles, I think you'd ultimately need some type of field that is consistently populated to use for filtering reports. Or even building a segmentation. 

I hope this helps!