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Picture this: Your sales team celebrates a big deal and when leadership asks what drove the win, someone inevitably points to the last touchpoint — maybe a demo request, a pricing inquiry, or a LinkedIn connection. It’s tempting to give all the credit to whatever tipped the scales, but here’s the problem: You might be making a critical mistake that undermines your entire demand strategy.
Kerry Cunningham, 6sense’s head of thought leadership and research, calls this the “freeloading bystander problem” — and it’s quietly sabotaging more B2B organizations than you might think.
The last-touch attribution trap
Most sales and marketing leaders know intellectually that attribution is messy, but they’re still falling into the same trap that’s plagued B2C marketing for years. In consumer marketing, search ads and direct traffic often get outsized credit for conversions, while brand awareness campaigns that actually primed those customers are ignored. The buyer clicked on a Google ad right before buying, so Google gets the gold star.
Dive deeper
But in B2B, the problem is much worse. Buying cycles are 11-month odysseys involving multiple stakeholders, countless touchpoints, and months of invisible research. And it’s a trap that even some of our customers fall into.
When you attribute a 6sense Qualified Account (6QA) — that critical signal that an account is ready for direct sales outreach — to whatever marketing campaign or sales activity occurred right before the account hit that threshold, you’re making the same mistake as a B2C marketer who thinks search ads are magic.
The freeloading bystander is stealing your credit
When your latest paid media campaign or email sequence “drives” new 6QAs that quickly turn into pipeline, it’s tempting to assign ROI to that effort. But here’s Kerry’s insight from decades of research at SiriusDecisions, Forrester, and now 6sense: that campaign likely had little to no role in getting the buyer to that decision point. It just happens to be running when the buyer is ready to engage.
This “freeloading bystander” soaks up credit for demand that was built months ago through consistent brand building, thought leadership, and early-stage nurturing.
Why this matters
Here’s what happens when you get 6QA attribution wrong:
Your budget allocation gets scrambled. That webinar series that’s been nurturing prospects for six months? It suddenly looks like dead weight because it wasn’t the “final touch” that created the 6QA. Meanwhile, that LinkedIn ad that happened to run when accounts were already primed for engagement looks like a superstar.
Your marketing team (and executive team) starts chasing the wrong metrics. Instead of focusing on programs that build sustained engagement across the entire buying committee, they optimize for whatever generates the most 6QAs based on last-touch. It’s like judging a relay team by only watching the anchor leg.
Your sales team loses context. When account executives don’t understand the full journey that brought an account to 6QA status, they miss critical insights about the buying committee’s priorities, pain points, and decision-making process. They’re walking into conversations without full context.
Your long-term demand engine gets starved. The programs that move accounts from unaware to 6QA-ready — thought leadership, analyst coverage, customer advocacy, early-stage content — get defunded in favor of tactics that look good in quarterly dashboards but do little to create new market demand.
The real story lives in the invisible 70%
Ask any buyer who engages with you: When did you put us on your shortlist? It won’t be yesterday.
6sense research shows that 70% of the buyer journey happens before vendors even know they’re being evaluated. During those invisible months, your prospects are consuming content, researching solutions, building internal consensus, and developing preferences. By the time they hit 6QA status, they’ve often already identified their favorite — and that favorite wins over 80% of the time.
Think about your own buying behavior. When you finally filled out that demo request form, was it really because of the retargeting ad you saw that morning? Or was it because you’d been researching the category for weeks, reading case studies, watching webinars, and building conviction that you needed to act?
The retargeting ad might have been the final nudge, but the real work happened long before that.
How to fix your attribution
Instead of asking “What created this 6QA?” ask “What journey brought this account to 6QA readiness?”
Use lagging indicators smartly. Understand that brand awareness and early demand work shows up in 6QAs months later. Build time-lag into your analyses. Which accounts did your brand marketing reach two quarters ago? Are they more likely to be 6QAs now than those you didn’t reach?
Shift some credit to non-click interactions. Anonymous traffic, analyst mentions, podcast listens, social engagement — these matter, even if they’re not tagged in your CRM. They’re building the awareness and affinity that makes accounts receptive when they’re ready to engage.
Model influence over time. Incremental lift testing, media mix modeling, and controlled experiments beat simplistic attribution tags. Look for patterns that reveal which early-stage activities correlate with later 6QA development.
Where technology can help
This is where 6sense’s buying stage intelligence becomes invaluable. Instead of just identifying when accounts hit 6QA status, the platform tracks progression through earlier stages — Target, Awareness, Consideration — and correlates that progression to specific campaigns and touchpoints.
6sense processes over 1 trillion buyer signals daily to capture the 70% of buyer activity that happens anonymously in the “Dark Funnel.” The platform assigns each account a score based on the overall level of account engagement and the activity of buying personas within the account. Learn how the scoring works here. 6AI™ analyzes account activity to determine buying stages, giving you the tool you need to analyze how early touchpoints contributed to pipeline readiness.
Real customer results prove that this approach works. PTC generated $18 million in net-new pipeline within four months by identifying 1,200 previously unknown accounts in Decision and Purchase stages that traditional lead scoring missed entirely. Iron Mountain achieved 21x ROI by segmenting accounts based on buying stages to boost the relevance of marketing and drive more opportunities forward.
Unlike traditional attribution, 6sense’s Buying Stage Progression Reports provide real-time insights into which campaigns actually drive account progression versus which ones just capture existing demand.
The bottom line for leaders
If your current demand programs are performing well, congratulations. But before you declare victory and double down on the tactics showing the best last-touch ROI, ask yourself: are these tactics driving demand, or just freeloading?
The freeloading bystander problem isn’t just an academic issue. It’s a strategic blind spot that’s quietly sabotaging your ability to build sustainable demand.
The accounts converting today didn’t decide to buy yesterday. They’ve been on a months-long journey, and every touchpoint along the way contributed to their readiness to engage. When you over-attribute success to the final touch, you’re not just getting the numbers wrong — you’re actively undermining the programs that actually create new market demand.
Kerry’s advice? Ask buyers who engage with you when they decided you were on their shortlist. Follow him on LinkedIn for more insights on fixing broken attribution models.
Ready to see the full buyer journey? Book a demo at 6sense.com to discover how we can help you identify opportunities, influence accounts, and build your revenue engine.
FAQ
What is a 6sense Qualified Account (6QA)?
A 6QA is a critical signal that indicates an account is ready for direct sales outreach. It’s based on 6sense’s AI analysis of buying stage progression, intent signals, and engagement data. When an account reaches 6QA status, it means they’ve moved through earlier stages (Target, Awareness, Consideration) and are now showing high-intent behaviors that suggest they’re ready to engage with sales.
What exactly is the “freeloading bystander problem”?
The freeloading bystander problem occurs when you credit the wrong marketing campaign or sales activity for generating a 6QA. It’s like giving a standing ovation to someone who just happened to walk into the theater during the final bow—they didn’t contribute to the performance, but they’re getting all the applause. In attribution terms, it means the campaign that was running when an account hit 6QA status gets full credit, even though the real work was done months earlier through brand building and early-stage nurturing.
Why is last-touch attribution so problematic for B2B?
B2B buying cycles are typically 11-month journeys involving multiple stakeholders and countless touchpoints. When you attribute a 6QA to whatever happened right before the account hit that threshold, you’re ignoring the 70% of the buyer journey that happens invisibly before vendors even know they’re being evaluated. It’s like judging a relay team by only watching the anchor leg—you miss the entire race that got them to the finish line.
How does this attribution mistake hurt my marketing strategy?
Poor 6QA attribution creates four major problems:
- Budget misallocation: Programs that nurture long-term demand get defunded while tactics that capture existing demand get overinvested
- Wrong metrics focus: Teams optimize for last-touch 6QA generation instead of sustained buying committee engagement
- Lost sales context: Account executives miss critical insights about the buyer’s journey and decision-making process
- Demand engine starvation: The programs that actually create new market demand—thought leadership, analyst coverage, customer advocacy—look ineffective and lose resources
What should I ask instead of “What created this 6QA?”
Shift your question to: “What journey brought this account to 6QA readiness?” This reframes the conversation from single-touch attribution to understanding the full progression of touchpoints that moved an account through Target → Awareness → Consideration → 6QA.
How far back should I look when analyzing 6QA attribution?
Most accounts have been researching and building consensus for months before hitting 6QA status. Build time-lag analyses into your reporting. Look at which accounts your brand marketing reached two or three quarters ago and whether they’re more likely to be 6QAs now than accounts you didn’t reach. The real influence often happens 3-6 months before the 6QA signal appears.
What about non-click interactions? Do they matter for attribution?
Absolutely. Anonymous traffic, analyst mentions, podcast listens, and social engagement all contribute to building the awareness and affinity that makes accounts receptive when they’re ready to engage. These interactions matter even if they’re not tracked in your CRM because they’re part of the invisible journey that primes accounts for eventual engagement.
How can 6sense technology help fix my attribution?
6sense’s buying stage intelligence tracks account progression through all stages—Target, Awareness,
Consideration, Decision, Purchase—not just when they hit 6QA status. The platform correlates progression to specific campaigns and touchpoints, giving you visibility into which early-stage activities actually drive accounts toward 6QA readiness. Plus, 6sense processes over 1 trillion buyer signals daily to capture activity in the “Dark Funnel” that traditional attribution completely misses.
What’s the difference between 6sense attribution and traditional attribution?
Traditional attribution models — last-touch, first-touch, or multi-touch — weren’t built for long, complex B2B buying journeys with multiple stakeholders. They give you snapshots of individual interactions, but miss the bigger picture of how accounts actually move through the buying process.
6sense’s combination of intent data tied to specific accounts and 6AI analysis of buying stages lets you see how your GTM efforts are actually influencing pipeline throughout the entire buyer journey. Instead of being stuck with attribution models that track individual touchpoints, you can see which campaigns move accounts from Awareness to Consideration to Decision—across the whole buying team, not just individual leads.
Can you give me an example of how this works in practice?
Sure. Let’s say your retargeting campaign shows high 6QA conversions and you’re tempted to increase that budget. But when you look at the full journey, you discover those “converting” accounts were actually reached by your thought leadership webinar series six months ago, consumed multiple pieces of content over several months, and were already 85% of the way to 6QA status when your retargeting ad appeared. The webinar series should get credit for creating demand; the retargeting ad was just the final nudge.
How do I know if my high-performing campaigns are actually freeloading?
Ask your customers directly: “When did you first put us on your shortlist?” If they say it was months ago, but your attribution shows recent campaigns driving the conversion, you’ve found a freeloading bystander. Also look for patterns where campaigns show great last-touch metrics but don’t actually correlate with increases in overall 6QA volume when you turn them on or off.
What’s the bottom line for fixing 6QA attribution?
Stop asking what campaign “drove” a 6QA and start understanding what journey brought an account to 6QA readiness. Use incremental lift testing, time-lag analyses, and buying stage progression data instead of simplistic attribution tags. Most importantly, recognize that the accounts converting today didn’t decide to buy yesterday—they’ve been on a months-long journey where every touchpoint contributed to their readiness to engage.
