Case Study
Engineering an Enterprise Attribution Spine
How Analytics Mates built durable marketing infrastructure for Gallagher Insurance.
Client partner
Executive summary
Enterprise marketing fails quietly when attribution is treated as a tooling problem instead of a systems problem. For Gallagher Insurance's DTC initiatives, we designed a durable attribution spine that connected media activity to captured customers and ultimately to billed customers — despite delayed billing cycles, cancellations, and CRM complexity.
This case study outlines the architecture, principles, and operating model behind that system.
System snapshot
The switch
Problem
Media decisions needed to align to billed customers — not proxy leads — despite delayed billing, cancellations, and CRM complexity.
Instead of
Click-based models, lead-level optimization disconnected from revenue, and manual reconciliation between marketing and finance.
The switch
A lifecycle-aware attribution spine where CRM defines revenue truth and performance is evaluated across time, not at click.
The enterprise attribution problem
- Revenue is delayed: billing often occurs 30+ days after capture, if it occurs at all.
- Cancellations distort performance: early churn invalidates naive conversion metrics.
- Phone and form journeys coexist: metadata quality varies by channel.
- CRMs define truth: key lifecycle events live downstream, not in GA4.
A critical reframe: what is a conversion?
Lead
An initial inbound inquiry (phone or form).
Captured customer
A validated profile with complete information — not yet billed.
Billed customer
The only state that represents true economic conversion.
The attribution spine: architecture, not middleware
Principles that shaped the system:
GA4 remains observational; CRM defines revenue truth.
Operating at enterprise reality
- Delayed billing windows
- Partial data from call-based journeys
- Cancellations after initial capture
- Optimization signals that lag engagement
What this replaced
- Click-based attribution models
- Lead-level optimization disconnected from revenue
- Manual reconciliation between marketing and finance
- Attribution debates driven by interpretation, not definition
Outcomes (without vanity metrics)
- ✓ Performance evaluated against captured and billed customers, not proxy events.
- ✓ Media optimization decisions aligned to economic outcomes.
- ✓ Attribution disputes decreased as definitions replaced interpretation.
- ✓ The system scaled across multiple DTC programs without re-engineering.
Why this matters for enterprise teams
Many vendors still sell integrations, middleware, and dashboards. Enterprise teams need systems that absorb ambiguity and still produce decisions.
This work demonstrates that attribution is not a setup task — it is operating infrastructure.
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We design systems that survive enterprise reality and drive confident decisions.