Marketing attribution has become more complex over the past decade, in part due to an unprecedented proliferation of new advertising platforms and new types of content. Getting attribution correct is not only an expensive undertaking, it is not. 1 pain point facing marketers today - harder than getting organizational buy-in, budget, audience insights, or the right technology. If you're new to marketing measurement, this might sound like bad news. That will be difficult. But if you're a veteran, you might be encouraged to hear about this radical struggle. You're not alone. Whether you're new to marketing attribution or a master, there are a handful of common pitfalls marketers fall into when looking to prove the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Falling into any of them can lead to employee email database bad data, which can inform bad decisions that ultimately spoil the very efforts you're trying to measure. Here are some pitfalls to avoid when measuring your marketing:Poor or undefined UTM usage Urchin tracking modules. This is what UTM stands for. We talk about UTMs so often in marketing that we're not only prone to forget what the acronym even stands for…we're also susceptible to being misused. Here is a quick list of other UTM best practices: Be consistent with your naming conventions Be specific with your naming conventions Be clear with your naming conventions Use a question mark (?) to start the UTM parameter Use an ampersand (&) to separate requests in a URL stringUse media recognized by Google Analytics Use the mandatory utm_source parameter. Using UTM for internal links, for example, will split a session into a new visit and delete the original source/medium data for that user. And using unrecognized media will create a bunch of cleanup down the road and pollute the image your attribution is meant to paint. Forget Sponsorship Exclusions Think of your website as a department store, with each page and section representing a different department. If you are in Google Analytics and see your own site as a referral source for a page visit, you forgot to exclude your own site as a referral. It's a bit like visiting the shoe department at Nordstrom and, when asked to take a survey after your purchase, write "Nordstrom" as the answer to the question "How did you hear about us?" question. This won't be too helpful for shop traders. And neither is your own domain as a referral source.