Who gets attribution credit when sales drives registration to a marketing event?

Bharath N. · 2026-10-08T04:19:33.407Z

Curious, if the sales team drives registration to a marketing event, and an opportunity is created, whom are you giving attribution credit to? Sales for driving registration or marketing because sales leverages that particular marketing event as a hook to bring in the prospect and marketing team owns the event budget?

7 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Rohit G.
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marketing imho, sales is not responsible for generating leads just closing them.
Affan A.
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Sales - if there was NO marketing first-touch evidence. My method isn't conventional, I call these sales generated leads, whereby there's no history of any marketing asset engagement before the sales team's direct engagement with the client. Call it SGL not SQL, skipping past the MQL stage to be fair with the sales team's effort. If there is any evidence of client's marketing asset engagement preceding the sales one, then it's MQL, not the parallel SGL.
Madhuri D.
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IMO - Both, but different kinds of credit. Sales sourced it (outbound, since they drove the registration), and Marketing influenced it (they built and funded the hook). Sourced goes to Sales, influence is shared.
Derek M.
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Was Sales already talking to the prospect, or did the event give them a reason to start that conversation? That would affect how I’d look at it. If the event helped open the door, giving Sales all the credit could make it harder to justify funding the next one. I’d want the reporting to preserve that context, even if you need one team listed as the source.
Kshitij B.
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id source it to sales if they were the ones who got the person to register. marketing still gets influence so you can see the event helped, just dont double count the opp
Mircea a.
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The credit question gets easier when the CRM keeps both facts. Sourced shows who started the conversation. Influenced shows what helped it move. Many setups keep only one source field, so someone picks a team and the context is gone. Derek's point is the one I'd protect. If the event opened the door, next year's report should still show it. How do you store influence today, a second field or campaign touches?
Kshitij B.
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campaign touches imo. a second field gets stale fast. i'd keep source as one locked field and let the touches stack on the opp

Rohit G.
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marketing imho, sales is not responsible for generating leads just closing them.
Affan A.
·
·
Sales - if there was NO marketing first-touch evidence. My method isn't conventional, I call these sales generated leads, whereby there's no history of any marketing asset engagement before the sales team's direct engagement with the client. Call it SGL not SQL, skipping past the MQL stage to be fair with the sales team's effort. If there is any evidence of client's marketing asset engagement preceding the sales one, then it's MQL, not the parallel SGL.
Madhuri D.
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IMO - Both, but different kinds of credit. Sales sourced it (outbound, since they drove the registration), and Marketing influenced it (they built and funded the hook). Sourced goes to Sales, influence is shared.
Derek M.
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Was Sales already talking to the prospect, or did the event give them a reason to start that conversation? That would affect how I’d look at it. If the event helped open the door, giving Sales all the credit could make it harder to justify funding the next one. I’d want the reporting to preserve that context, even if you need one team listed as the source.
Kshitij B.
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id source it to sales if they were the ones who got the person to register. marketing still gets influence so you can see the event helped, just dont double count the opp
Mircea a.
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The credit question gets easier when the CRM keeps both facts. Sourced shows who started the conversation. Influenced shows what helped it move. Many setups keep only one source field, so someone picks a team and the context is gone. Derek's point is the one I'd protect. If the event opened the door, next year's report should still show it. How do you store influence today, a second field or campaign touches?
Kshitij B.
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campaign touches imo. a second field gets stale fast. i'd keep source as one locked field and let the touches stack on the opp