How marketing reward programs can improve attribution
By Abby Quillen●5 min. read●Jan 22, 2026
Where do customers hear about your product? What prompts them to hit the buy button? If you’re having a hard time determining which marketing tactics are converting, you’re not alone. “Attribution is becoming harder and harder to measure,” said one marketer in response to our recent survey.
Eric Doty, Marketing Director at Dock, put it more bluntly: “We’re quickly approaching ‘no attribution, just vibes.’” Another marketer called the situation an “attribution apocalypse.”
Data confirms how widespread attribution concerns are. Nearly half (44%) of respondents in our survey said attribution is their biggest marketing challenge. And only 29% of marketers in an Ascend2 study were extremely confident in their attribution strategies.
Attribution is undeniably harder in 2026, but it’s not hopeless. Marketing rewards can give you the attribution advantage you’re looking for. In this guide, you’ll learn why attribution is so tricky, why it still matters, and how marketing rewards create clearer, more accurate attribution.
The problem with attribution in 2026
Several factors are converging to make it more difficult to tell which channels and campaigns drive results when using traditional digital marketing tactics.
1. Privacy restrictions limit tracking
In 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) required users to give consent for third-party digital tracking, launching an era of increased privacy restrictions. GDPR marked a major disruption for digital marketers who relied on non-consensual tracking to understand how customers discovered their products and services.
Two years later, in 2020, Apple blocked third-party cookies (small text files used for cross-site tracking) by default in Safari and on iOS devices. Subsequent iOS updates blocked many fingerprinting techniques and stripped tracking parameters from URLS. Meanwhile, more than 20 U.S. states have passed comprehensive consumer privacy laws that restrict how businesses can track and use data.
These changes are good for consumers’ digital rights, but they make it much more difficult to know where your customers come from.
2. Customer journeys are increasingly fragmented
At the same time that privacy restrictions have made tracking more challenging, omnichannel commerce has become the norm. The average B2B buyer interacts with a company 27 times before purchasing, according to Forrester research. Consumers interact with companies in-store and across email, blogs, podcasts, media mentions, social platforms, forums, chatbots, generative AI models, messaging apps, and more.
With all those touchpoints, it’s harder to know where customers first heard about a business or which campaign influenced their ultimate decision to buy. Also, these channels aren’t equally easy to measure, so marketers may misattribute sales to easier channels to track.
4. "Dark funnel" channels are untraceable
Most buyers make their decisions before they talk to a vendor while they’re anonymously researching solutions for their problems, according to research by 6sense. 6sense calls this anonymous period the “dark funnel,” and they estimate it makes up about 70% of the buyer’s journey. If a buyer takes five months to buy your product, that means they may spend three and a half months in an anonymous exploration phase that’s impossible for your company to track.
Because of all three of these factors, it’s increasingly difficult for marketers to determine which interactions influence conversions and which channels play the biggest role along a buyer’s journey.
Why accurate attribution matters for customer acquisition
Ironically, as attribution gets tougher, many marketing teams need it more than ever to prove their value. In a 2024 study, 73% of B2B marketers said they were ramping up measurement and attribution because their companies wanted them to show ROI.
Attribution is critical for far more than just demonstrating value. In a Revsure and Ascend2 study, nearly all (98%) marketing professionals agreed that marketing attribution is indispensable for their overall marketing strategy. Nearly half (46%) of marketers in a different Ascend2 study said successful attribution is crucial for more precise targeting and higher marketing return on investment (ROI). Plus, 42% said they need successful attribution for better decision-making, and 38% said it helps them better allocate their budget.
Accurate attribution is critical for determining customer acquisition cost (CAC), a metric that is top of mind for many marketers. As one respondent in the Tremendous survey noted, “CAC has been rising steadily across online channels,” highlighting the challenges many marketers face in managing acquisition costs. CAC was the top metric the respondents in the survey wanted to improve, with 83% of them focused on decreasing it. Because accurate attribution is essential for understanding which channels drive conversions, clear attribution is the first step toward optimizing this metric.
If your attribution is inaccurate, you may be wasting resources on channels that aren’t driving results. You need accurate data to identify the best places to spend your marketing dollars.
Marketing rewards as an attribution advantage
Using third-party cookies to track people is increasingly difficult because of privacy restrictions, fragmented customer journeys, and untraceable channels. Plus, even when they work, they can fall short for attribution. When someone clicks an ad on one device and makes a purchase on another, the cookie doesn’t link the sale to the specific marketing campaign. Marketers are often left uncertain about which channels actually drove conversions.
Rewards marketing offers a solution. By tying incentives to specific actions, you can see exactly what influenced a sale. Here’s what you need to know about using rewards marketing to measure and improve results.
How marketing rewards work
Your company offers an incentive — like a gift card, rebate, or cash back — for taking a demo,
trying a new product, leaving a review, being a loyal customer, or referring your product to another customer.
Benefits of marketing rewards
Customers love rewards, and rewards may boost referrals and sales. Plus, when you acquire customers via a rewards program, research suggests they’re significantly more likely to refer other customers.
How marketing rewards solve attribution challenges
Customers who join a rewards program willingly choose to share their data in exchange for incentives. That means you can follow the reward lifecycle from offer to action to redemption. Your marketing team gains real-time visibility into how customers engage with offers, what drives them to buy, and who they refer products to.
3 ways rewards simplify attribution tracking
Rewards improve attribution tracking in three key ways:
1. First-party data collection
The data you gain through your rewards program is first-party data, which means your customers willingly provide it (in exchange for awesome rewards). Unlike third-party cookies, first-party data is compliant with privacy restrictions. Plus, since you own the data, your competitors don’t have access to it.
2. Unique tracking codes
With rewards marketing, each incentive offer creates a unique code. When a customer redeems their reward, the system records the code, the campaign it came from, and the resulting action. With this clear, verifiable attribution, you know which actions lead to conversions, no matter which device your customers use. For example, if you offer a $25 gift card when a referral converts and a customer redeems it, you know exactly how you acquired the new customer.
3. Closed-loop reporting
Because each incentive is tied to a code, you can follow a customer through the entire rewards process and track when they redeem the reward and whether it leads to repeat engagement. With this information, you learn which campaigns drive results.
3 ways to make the case for marketing rewards
Now that you understand the benefits of rewards, it’s time to convince your team and other stakeholders of their value. Your company could implement them as part of a broader loyalty program aimed at building long-term repeat business. A large majority (83%) of companies with loyalty programs that measure ROI report a positive return. But a shorter campaign-specific pilot is a great way to demonstrate value to stakeholders. Here are three ways to make the case for marketing rewards when it comes to improving attribution:
1. Compare attribution clarity across different marketing tactics
Show stakeholders how rewards tie campaigns to unique codes to create direct, verifiable attribution. Compare them with traditional marketing channels, which only track clicks and impressions.
2. Show concrete examples of reward program attribution in action
Nearly six in 10 (58.2%) companies with loyalty programs say their programs help them gather valuable customer data. Even initial results from a small pilot program can show the benefits of clear attribution.
3. Highlight ROI visibility and reporting advantages
Rewards programs let you track redemption rate, engagement rate, average order value, purchase frequency, and other metrics. Explain how this data gives your team and stakeholders clear insight into which marketing campaigns are working and which need optimization.
Conclusion
Attribution is difficult in 2026, but rewards marketing makes it simpler. Rewards programs give you clear, verifiable first-party data. You no longer need to guess which campaigns are working based on clicks and impressions or tracking without consent. Every interaction is tied to a unique tracking code, so you follow customers all the way through their journey. Armed with clear data, you understand which campaigns are driving results so you can optimize your marketing campaigns for success.
