Let’s start with a funeral.
Attribution, once the crown jewel of marketing performance, has flatlined. It lived a good life - full of UTMs, tracking pixels, and multi-touch models that tried to please everyone and satisfied no one. But it's time to stop resuscitating it.
RIP Attribution (2005–2025): You were never as accurate as we said you were.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: in complex B2B buying journeys, attribution is becoming the marketing equivalent of astrology. Occasionally helpful, often vaguely correct, mostly a source of spirited debate and questionable tattoos.
It’s time for a new paradigm: Orchestration.
Where attribution is obsessed with credit, orchestration is obsessed with impact. Where attribution tries to retroactively explain the past, orchestration builds the future.
Let’s break this down. With humor. With honesty. And with a better way forward.
The problem with attribution (and why it needs to die)
Attribution started with good intentions. Marketing needed a seat at the revenue table. Sales got the credit, finance got the trust, and marketing got... vibes.
So we built systems to track how prospects engaged: clicks, form fills, ad impressions, webinar attendance. We poured that data into models like:
First touch
Last touch
Linear
Time decay
W-shaped, U-shaped, Z-shaped, yoga-shaped...
And we told ourselves: this is truth. This is ROI. This is the holy grail.
But here’s what really happened:
People lie to forms. ("How did you hear about us?" = whatever they vaguely remember or feel like saying.)
Buyers self-educate off-platform. Podcasts, Slack channels, industry groups, analyst recommendations, peer DMs - none of which are captured by standard attribution.
Dark social doesn’t show up in your CRM. But it moves the needle, hard.
Data gets lost, tools don’t talk, and everyone interprets it differently.
It creates the wrong incentives. Marketers start optimizing for what can be tracked, not what actually works.
In short: attribution is like a funhouse mirror. You think you’re seeing yourself, but you end up with a big head, tiny legs, and a warped sense of reality.
So what the hell is Orchestration?
Let’s switch metaphors. If attribution is about assigning credit after the fact, orchestration is about conducting the performance in real time.
It’s a mindset and an operational approach.
It’s about:
Coordinating marketing and sales efforts across the funnel
Designing experiences based on buyer behavior, not your internal org chart
Using real-time signals to trigger the next best action
Thinking in systems, not silos
Measuring momentum, not just moments
Great orchestration isn’t about asking, "Who do we credit for this deal?" It’s about asking, "How do we replicate this successful sequence at scale?"
Attribution asks "who?" - Orchestration asks "how?"
Attribution is built for ego. Orchestration is built for outcomes. Instead of fighting over whether the email, the webinar, or the LinkedIn ad gets the win, orchestration says:
"Let’s map the full journey, learn what nudges moved the prospect forward, and build a repeatable playbook."
Let’s be blunt: nobody buys a six-figure SaaS platform because of one blog post or an MQL score. B2B buying is a team sport. It’s long, political, and full of backchannel conversations. Trying to pinpoint a single "trigger" is not only foolish - it’s a distraction.
Anatomy of great Orchestration
Want to move from chaos to coordination? Here’s what orchestration actually looks like in practice:
1. Journey-centric thinking
You stop designing around your campaign calendar and start mapping the actual steps your buyers take. Then you build around their process, not yours.
2. Signals over stages
Forget rigid funnel stages. Focus on signals: repeat visits, asset downloads, job title changes, buying committee behavior, tech installs. These tell you who’s moving and when.
3. Next best action models
Instead of throwing generic nurture streams at everyone, you use behaviour and context to trigger relevant steps: SDR call, targeted content, retargeting, direct mail, etc.
4. Cross-functional coordination
Sales, marketing, and customer success operate off the same playbook. Tools are integrated. Messaging is aligned. Everyone knows what’s happening, and why.
5. Continuous optimization
You don’t set it and forget it. You test sequences, measure progression, and double down on plays that work. The orchestration never stops.
This isn’t just marketing automation with a facelift. It’s a smarter way of running revenue operations.
Metrics that matter in Orchestration
If you’re not using attribution as your north star, what do you measure?
Here’s the good stuff:
Pipeline velocity: Are deals moving faster based on our plays?
Conversion rates between key signals: From hand-raiser to opp, from opp to win.
Influence by sequence: Did this orchestration increase account engagement or multithreaded activity?
Time to engagement: How quickly are we moving from unknown to known, or from known to engaged?
Buying committee penetration: Are we reaching more decision-makers per account?
You’re not just measuring who clicked. You’re measuring momentum.
The tech you need (and the tech you don’t)
Orchestration doesn’t mean buying another 17 tools. It means:
Integration: CRM, MAP, intent data, ABM platform - all singing from the same hymn sheet
Real-time data processing: Not batch-and-blast. Think streaming signals.
Playbooks: Documented sequences tied to personas and buying stages
Trigger-based actions: Logic that kicks in when signals appear
You don’t need to drown in martech. You need a few good systems that actually work together.
Pro tip: If you’re spending more time configuring your platform than executing plays, you’ve missed the point.
Objections (and why they’re wrong)
"But our CFO wants attribution reports!" Sure, give them a version. Just don’t base your strategy on it. Attribution can be a great sanity check, but it shouldn’t be your GPS.
"Isn’t orchestration just a buzzword?" If done poorly, yes. If done right, it’s a revenue engine. Execution is what separates hype from impact.
"This sounds complicated." It doesn’t have to be. Start small. Pick one journey, one persona, one play. Learn. Scale. Rinse and repeat.
"Can’t we just use ChatGPT for this?" AI can help. But orchestration still needs strategy, context, and human judgment. Think of it as your copilot, not your pilot.
The new mandate for CMOs
Here’s the harsh truth: if you’re still showing up to the board with just attribution models and MQL dashboards, you’re playing last decade’s game.
Modern CMOs are being asked to:
Influence pipeline, not just impressions
Drive alignment across GTM functions
Build revenue operations that scale
You can’t do that with attribution alone. You can do it with orchestration steering the strategy.
Because the board doesn’t care who gets credit. They care what’s working, what’s repeatable, and what’s next.
Final thoughts: Let attribution die in peace
Let's be serious for a moment - we’re not saying throw out all your data immediately or stop utilising your existing attribution model straight away. We’re saying get smarter about how you use it. Obsessing over attribution is like arguing about who should’ve been MVP while the trophy gets stolen.
Orchestration is about winning the game.
So raise a glass to attribution. Thank it for its service. Then quietly and slowly show it the door. Because the future of B2B marketing isn’t about who gets the credit. It’s about building systems that drive actual, scalable revenue outcomes.
Attribution is dead. Long live Orchestration.
Need help building Orchestration that actually works? That’s what we do. We help B2B Marketing Operations move from fragmented chaos to coordinated revenue-generating machines.
If you're ready to stop arguing about leads and start driving pipeline, let's talk.
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