Your question
"which channels should get credit for new contacts from our demo request form this quarter? Leadership thinks paid social is overrated." You also asked about revenue attribution.
Edition check: you are on Marketing Hub Professional. HubSpot lists Deal Create and Deal Revenue Attribution as "Marketing Hub Enterprise accounts only", so I cannot spec a revenue report for your account. Contact Create Attribution fits your question as asked.
Report spec
| setting | value | why (your words) |
|---|---|---|
| Menu path | More > Reporting > Reports (or Reporting > Reports), Create report, then Attribution report in the left sidebar, Next, then the Contacts data source | HubSpot's path for the custom attribution builder |
| Data source | Contact Create Attribution | "credit for new contacts" |
| Attribution models | First Touch, Last Touch and Linear, all three selected | to see how much the model changes the answer for "paid social"; HubSpot shows each model's credits separately |
| Chart type | a bar or table type; not Donut, Pie or Summary | HubSpot allows those three only with one model or dimension |
| Dimension | an Interaction dimension for the interaction source; exact dimension name not confirmed in my sources | "which channels" |
| Filter: date | Contact create date = this quarter | "this quarter" |
| Filter: demo form | Contact segments filter with a segment of contacts who submitted the demo request form | "from our demo request form"; HubSpot lists no form filter for this report type, so a segment does it |
| Status | HELD: not created or saved in your account |
Interaction types to check
| interaction | depends on | note |
|---|---|---|
| Ad click (paid search) | Google Ads connected to HubSpot | You said it is connected |
| Ad click (paid social) | LinkedIn Ads connected to HubSpot | Not connected. HubSpot says "Your ad accounts must be connected to your HubSpot account" to track ad clicks, so the report can miss LinkedIn ad clicks |
| Marketing email click | HubSpot marketing email | in use |
| Form submission, page view | HubSpot tracking code and forms | assumed in use; please confirm |
| Off by default types (media plays, marketing events, sequences, custom events) | turning them on in settings | My source lists default on and off types for revenue and deal create reports, not for contact create; check your settings |
Credit by model from your paths
Our calculation on your paste, not HubSpot output. 32 contacts. The Form step is the conversion and gets no credit. First touch gives 1 to the first source, last touch gives 1 to the last source before the form, linear splits 1 equally across all steps before the form. Share = credit / 32. Spread = largest minus smallest share across the three models, in points. Time Decay and Empirical are not reproduced.
| source | first touch | share | last touch | share | linear | share | spread (points) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organic search | 12 | 37.5% | 8 | 25.0% | 10.00 | 31.2% | 12.5 |
| Paid search | 6 | 18.8% | 7 | 21.9% | 6.33 | 19.8% | 3.1 |
| Paid social | 6 | 18.8% | 2 | 6.2% | 4.17 | 13.0% | 12.5 |
| 3 | 9.4% | 11 | 34.4% | 6.67 | 20.8% | 25.0 | |
| Referral | 3 | 9.4% | 2 | 6.2% | 2.50 | 7.8% | 3.1 |
| Direct | 2 | 6.2% | 2 | 6.2% | 2.33 | 7.3% | 1.0 |
| All | 32 | 100.0% | 32 | 100.0% | 32.00 | 100.0% |
| paths | with 1 step | with 2 steps | with 3 steps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | 10 | 16 | 6 |
What the models disagree on
Hypothesis, on 32 contacts in one quarter, not proof: the share that moves most across models is Email's; next, tied, are Organic search and Paid social (see the spread column). For your leadership's view of paid social: its share is 18.8% under first touch, 6.2% under last touch and 13.0% under linear in the table above, so the answer depends on which model they read. And because LinkedIn Ads is not connected, a HubSpot report may credit paid social less than your pasted timeline does.
No model is the correct one: first touch credits what started the journey, last touch what came right before the form, linear every step equally.
Questions for you
- Do you want LinkedIn Ads connected to HubSpot before the report is built, so paid social ad clicks can be tracked?
- Is there a contact segment of demo form submitters already, or should the spec include building one?
- Revenue attribution needs Enterprise. Is an upgrade on the table, or should I stay with contact create only?
Needs your decision
- The report spec is HELD. Approve it before anything is created, saved or shared in HubSpot, or any attribution setting is changed.