3 - Model Types

Working with Model Types

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

• Describe and understand the key differences between an Opportunity-Based and Account-Based model type
• Know when to use an Opportunity-Based or Account-Based model based on your business processes

NOTE: These lessons refer to a fictitious company, Spiral Inc. and how they utilize Campaign Attribution to solve marketing challenges. Please review Intro to Spiral Inc. to learn more about Spiral’s use case.

Before Dina builds models specific to Spiral, Inc.’s business processes, Dina will need to understand what model types are available and the pros and cons of each type. In Full Circle Campaign Attribution there are 2 different model types to choose from: Opportunity Based and Account Based.

Opportunity Based Model Type

The Opportunity Based Model Type looks exclusively at the Contact Roles assigned to the Opportunity and the Campaign Member responses tied to those individuals. In an Opportunity Based Model it is important that your sales team adds Contacts to Opportunities. Additionally, you may want to require that your sales team not just add the primary Contact, but all of the influencers on the Opportunity in order for the model to consider Campaign Member responses from the entire buying group.

Campaign Members that are evaluated must still fall within the timeframe of the model to be given attribution value for an Opportunity.

In an Opportunity Based Model, ensure your sales team is actively using Contact Roles on the Opportunity to identify all influencers within the buying group.

In Spiral’s case, Dina has observed that the Hardware Sales Reps do tend to always include the appropriate Contact Roles on all of their Opportunities due to the long sales cycle and more complex buying process, but she’s noticed that the Software Reps do not always add Contact Roles, if they do they tend to just add the primary Contact. Dina is considering using an Opportunity Based Model Type for hardware Opportunities, but what type of model will work best for the Software Sales team?

Account Based Model Type

The Account Based Model Type looks at Contacts on the same Account that the Opportunity is associated with and the Campaign Member responses tied to those individuals. An Account Based Model can be useful if your sales team does not consistently add Contact Roles to the Opportunity. An Account Based Model is more encompassing and ensures that touches on Contacts that haven’t been specifically added to the Opportunity are still included.

Campaign Members that are evaluated must still fall within the timeframe of the model to be given attribution value for an Opportunity.

The tradeoff is that for large Accounts (with many Contacts) some Campaign Member responses might not be influential to a specific Opportunity (e.g., an Opportunity for a product specific to a single department where there are many Contacts from many departments on the Account), so it’s always more accurate if all Contacts that are influential to the Opportunity are added as Contact Roles. In other words, if your organization has very large Accounts, an Opportunity Based Model may be more appropriate.

In Spiral’s case, Dina knows that Spiral’s software sales team does not consistently use Contact Roles and these software Opportunities are typically on smaller Accounts. For these reasons, Dina is considering using an Account Based Model Type for software Opportunities.