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Glossary

What is lead attribution?

By Youssef Hodaigui, Mindflow Marketing · Last reviewed October 29, 2026

Lead attribution is deciding which marketing source gets the credit for a lead or a booked job: the ad, the Google Business Profile, the mailer or the referral that made the customer get in touch. Google Analytics defines attribution as "the act of assigning credit for important user actions to different ads, clicks, and factors along the user's path to completing the action."

Attribution answers "where did this customer come from?" Tools such as call tracking collect the evidence; attribution is the rule you use to hand out the credit.

01

How does lead attribution work for calls and forms?

Each kind of lead needs its own way of recording the source. Calls get a tracking number per source. Website visits get tagged links, so your analytics shows which campaign sent them. Forms can carry the page and source the visitor came from. And every call should end with "How did you hear about us?" written into your records.

For links you control, Google Analytics explains: "By adding utm campaign parameters to the destination URLs you use in referral links and ad campaigns, you can view which campaigns refer traffic." That works for an email, a social post or the website link on your Business Profile. None of these methods catches everything. A customer who saw your truck, then searched your name, shows up as a search. Asking the customer fills that gap.

02

What are attribution models?

An attribution model is the rule for splitting credit when a customer touched more than one source before getting in touch. Last click gives all the credit to the final ad or link. Data-driven attribution spreads it based on how your past customers converted. Google Ads now offers only these two.

Google's help page says: "The first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models are no longer supported by Google." Last click "Gives all credit for the conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword," and data-driven "is the default attribution model for most conversion actions." Google Analytics adds that "All attribution models exclude direct visits from receiving attribution credit, unless the path to key event consists entirely of direct visits." So a customer who clicked your ad last week and types your address in today is credited to the ad, not to the direct visit.

03

Why do your reports disagree about where leads came from?

Because each platform counts its own way. Google Ads counts conversions under the model you chose. Your Business Profile counts taps on the call button. Local Services Ads counts the leads it charges for. Your CRM counts what your team logged. The same customer can appear in two or three of these reports at once.

Google's Business Profile "Calls" figure, for example, is "the number of times a customer clicked on the call button on your Business Profile," whether or not anyone answered. Adding up every platform's number usually gives you more leads than you actually got. Pick one record as the truth, normally your job records, and use the platform reports to explain it.

04

How should a contractor attribute booked jobs?

Record a source on every job in your CRM, using the tracking number, the tagged link or the customer's answer. Then, each quarter, divide what you spent on each source by the jobs it booked. That's cost per booked job, and it's the number to move money by. Keep the method the same from quarter to quarter.

If you run Google Ads, you can send booked calls back to Google: it lets you import calls from another system and count them "as conversions only when they include sales," so its bidding learns from jobs, not just calls. At Mindflow, the monthly report shows the calls and form fills your tracking records. Booked jobs come from your records, and when you share them we report them together.

Related terms: Call tracking · Cost per lead · Conversion rate · Zero-click search · All glossary terms

Where to go next: Home-service lead generation shows how to work out cost per booked job by source. How much to spend on marketing covers setting and reviewing your budget.