How to Use Hubspot Attribution Reporting Effectively
Understanding how Hubspot attribution reporting works is essential if you want accurate insight into which marketing efforts generate contacts, deals, and revenue. By configuring attribution reports correctly, you can see which touchpoints contribute most to growth and make smarter investment decisions.
This guide explains the key concepts behind attribution in the tool, the types of standard reports available, and how to interpret them for better marketing and sales performance.
What Is Attribution Reporting in Hubspot?
Attribution reporting assigns credit for outcomes—such as new contacts or closed deals—to the marketing and sales interactions that happened along the way. Rather than only tracking the first or last touch, attribution helps you understand the whole journey.
The platform pulls together activities from multiple objects, including:
- Contacts
- Companies
- Deals
- Marketing assets (pages, emails, forms, CTAs, ads, and more)
That data is then used to calculate how much each interaction contributed to a defined outcome, depending on the attribution model you choose.
Key Concepts Behind Hubspot Attribution
Before you can confidently use these reports, it helps to understand a few core concepts.
Events and touchpoints
During a prospect’s lifecycle, many events occur—page views, form submissions, email opens, ad clicks, and more. The system converts these events into touchpoints, which are then used in attribution calculations.
Common examples of touchpoints include:
- First page seen by a visitor in a session
- Last page seen before key conversions
- Form submissions that create a contact
- Interactions that occur between contact creation and deal creation
- Engagements between deal creation and deal close
Lifecycles vs. deals
Attribution can be based on either contact lifecycle stages or deals, depending on which report you choose. This makes it possible to answer questions such as:
- Which channels create the most new contacts?
- Which assets help progress contacts to later lifecycle stages?
- Which interactions have the most influence on revenue from closed deals?
Attribution models
The platform offers different attribution models, each distributing credit across touchpoints in a specific way. Some models emphasize early interactions, some favor late interactions, and others split credit more evenly.
Model choice matters because it changes how much credit each page, email, or ad receives. For example, a first-touch model gives all credit to the first interaction, while a last-touch model gives it all to the final interaction before the conversion.
Types of Hubspot Attribution Reports
The software provides standard reports for both contact and deal attribution. These can be added to dashboards and filtered to answer more specific questions.
Contact attribution reports
Contact-based reports focus on how people became contacts or how they moved between lifecycle stages. Common views show which pages, campaigns, or sources contributed to:
- New contact creation
- Lifecycle progression (e.g., subscriber to lead, lead to MQL)
- Specific contact milestones you define
Use these reports to identify which marketing channels reliably generate high-value contacts over time.
Deal attribution reports
Deal-based reports measure which touchpoints contribute to revenue. They connect marketing and sales interactions with outcomes like:
- Deals created
- Deals won
- Revenue amount closed
These reports help you see which content, campaigns, and channels influence actual sales rather than just top-of-funnel activity.
Attribution reporting models in Hubspot
Available models allow you to analyze the same data from different angles. While the exact list of models may vary, they commonly include multi-touch options and models oriented around first or last interaction. Within reports, you can switch models to see how credit distribution changes.
How to Build an Attribution Report in Hubspot
Follow these steps to create a standard attribution report from scratch.
1. Navigate to the reports library
- Open your main navigation.
- Go to the reporting section and access the reports library.
- Locate the attribution category within the list of standard reports.
2. Choose a standard attribution template
In the library, you will find predefined attribution report templates. Select the one that best matches your goal, such as:
- Contact create attribution
- Deal create attribution
- Revenue attribution by source or asset
Preview the template to confirm it aligns with the questions you want to answer.
3. Configure filters and date ranges
Once you select a template, configure it by setting:
- Date range for included interactions or outcomes
- Pipeline or deal stage filters for deal-based reports
- Lifecycle filters for contact-based reports
- Any additional criteria needed to focus on specific campaigns, teams, or regions
Thoughtful filtering helps ensure the report reflects the exact segment you care about.
4. Select your attribution model
Choose the attribution model you want to apply. You can:
- Start with a multi-touch model to see a balanced view.
- Switch to first-touch or last-touch models to understand the extremes.
- Compare how different models change the ranking of assets.
Because each model distributes credit differently, it is useful to try more than one and note how insights change.
5. Save and add to a dashboard
- Click the option to save your configured report.
- Name it clearly so others understand what it measures.
- Add it to an existing dashboard or create a new one dedicated to attribution.
Dashboards make it easy to monitor attribution metrics regularly without rebuilding reports each time.
Best Practices for Reading Hubspot Attribution Reports
Interpreting attribution data correctly is as important as building the reports.
Look beyond a single model
Relying only on one model can skew your perspective. Comparing multiple models highlights which pages, campaigns, and channels are consistently important touchpoints regardless of weighting.
Segment your data
Use filters to slice reports by:
- Deal pipeline or deal type
- Region or market
- Campaign or product line
- Date ranges that align with big launches or seasonal trends
Segmentation helps you avoid broad averages that hide important differences between segments.
Connect insights to action
Once you identify high-impact assets, use that information to:
- Invest more in top-performing channels and campaigns.
- Refresh or expand content that plays a key role in closing deals.
- Improve underperforming assets that should be driving more value.
Attribution is most useful when it directly informs budget allocation and optimization decisions.
Limitations and Data Considerations in Hubspot
All attribution systems have constraints, and understanding them will make your analysis more realistic.
- Attribution depends on tracked interactions; untracked offline activity will not appear.
- Privacy settings, cookie consent, and ad blockers can limit available data.
- Different models can tell different stories, so context is important.
Always interpret metrics alongside qualitative feedback from marketing and sales teams.
Where to Learn More About Hubspot Attribution
For the full technical reference on attribution reporting, including supported models, configuration options, and data definitions, see the official documentation on understanding attribution reporting.
If you want strategic help implementing these practices and integrating them into a wider analytics stack, you can also explore consulting resources such as Consultevo for broader marketing operations guidance.
By combining a clear grasp of how attribution works with well-structured reports, you can use Hubspot data to make confident, data-driven decisions about where to focus your marketing and sales efforts.
Need Help With Hubspot?
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