Attribution Models & Types:
What Is W-Shaped Attribution?
W-shaped attribution is a multi-touch model that concentrates credit on the three pivotal milestones of a B2B journey—first touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation—while still recognizing the supporting touches in between. It is designed to reflect how real buying cycles work across Marketing and Sales.
W-shaped attribution assigns most of the credit to three key moments in the funnel—first marketing touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation—then spreads the remaining credit across the other touches. In many B2B organizations, a common setup gives 30% to each milestone touch and 10% shared across the rest. This pattern makes it easier to see which programs drive discovery, qualification, and sales-ready demand, aligning performance views across Marketing, Sales, and Finance.
Why W-Shaped Attribution Matters
W-shaped attribution is popular in B2B because it respects the full journey while highlighting the moments when buyers meaningfully advance toward revenue.
How W-Shaped Attribution Works
To get value from W-shaped attribution, you need clear milestones, consistent tracking, and rules that your executive team understands and supports.
Implementation Steps
- Define your three milestones — Commonly first marketing touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation. Align these definitions with Sales and RevOps.
- Standardize tracking and identity — Use UTMs, person and account IDs, and channel/program taxonomies so you can reliably map touches to records.
- Choose your weighting pattern — Many teams start with 30% / 30% / 30% / 10%, but you can adjust based on cycle length, motion, or segment.
- Configure your attribution engine — Implement the W-shaped model in your marketing automation platform, CRM, or attribution tool with clear lookback windows.
- Validate against real journeys — Sample recent wins and losses to confirm that credited touches match how deals actually progress.
- Publish an executive view — Build dashboards that show program impact on first touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation by segment and region.
- Iterate with experiments — Use lift tests to identify where W-shaped credit may overstate or understate true incremental impact.
How W-Shaped Compares to Other Models
| Model | How Credit Is Assigned | Best For | Strengths | Watch Outs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First-Touch | 100% of credit goes to the first recorded interaction. | Brand and early-funnel discovery analysis. | Simple to implement; clear view of demand creation sources. | Ignores mid- and late-stage touches that influence qualification and close. |
| Last-Touch | 100% of credit goes to the final interaction before conversion. | Conversion optimization and form-fill analysis. | Highlights content and channels that close the loop. | Over-credits bottom-of-funnel interactions like direct or brand search. |
| Linear | Equal credit is distributed across all touches in the path. | Journeys with many similar touches and no obvious milestones. | Recognizes all interactions; easy to explain. | Can dilute signal; treats minor touches like major ones. |
| W-Shaped | Most credit is given to first touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation, with remaining credit spread across other touches. | B2B journeys where Marketing and Sales share responsibility for pipeline creation. | Balances early and mid-funnel impact; aligns with opportunity creation and pipeline ownership. | Requires reliable milestone data and agreement on weighting rules. |
| Data-Driven / Algorithmic | Credit is calculated statistically based on contribution patterns across many journeys. | High-volume digital environments with many signals and channels. | Adapts to real behavior; identifies subtle assist channels. | Can be opaque; needs strong data quality and governance. |
Client Snapshot: W-Shaped in Action
A global SaaS company moved from last-touch to W-shaped attribution, weighting first touch, lead creation, and opportunity creation at 30% each. Within six months, they uncovered that mid-funnel webinars and nurture programs were critical to opportunity creation, increased investment in those programs by 20%, and saw a 23% lift in qualified pipeline with clear visibility into which campaigns drove each milestone.
W-shaped attribution becomes even more powerful when connected to frameworks like Revenue Marketing Transformation and journey models such as The Loop™, so every touch is evaluated in the context of the full customer lifecycle.
FAQ: Understanding W-Shaped Attribution
Clear explanations you can share with executives, RevOps, and channel owners.
Make W-Shaped Attribution Work for You
Align milestones, data, and dashboards so everyone can see how programs create and advance pipeline across the full journey.
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