Key takeaways
- Why last-touch undervalues every brand and awareness dollar
- How to read assist conversions without falling for vanity
- Which channels typically over-index on assists in B2B SaaS
- How to build a position-based model that rewards true journeys
- How to defend brand budget to your CFO with one chart
Last-touch is a story about endings
Last-touch attribution gives 100% of the credit to whichever ad happened to be clicked closest to the conversion. In B2B SaaS, that's almost always a branded search ad. Branded search looks like a hero. Brand, podcast, content, and influencer spend look like waste.
The reality is that branded search is mostly capturing demand created upstream. Cut the brand and the branded-search numbers crash a month later.
Assist conversions tell the truth
An assist conversion is any touchpoint in the buyer's journey that wasn't the last click but contributed to the deal. Multi-touch attribution gives partial credit to each assist, weighted by position or by a custom model.
The first time most B2B SaaS teams turn this on, they discover that 30-50% of pipeline is influenced by upper-funnel touches the last-touch report never showed.
Defend the budget with one chart
Build a single chart that compares last-touch revenue to multi-touch influenced revenue, broken down by channel, for the last full quarter. Show it to your CFO. The conversation about brand spend gets easier, immediately.
Cometly · Guide
