Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Attribution Isn't Dead, You're Just Doing It Wrong 📉 GUEST! CMO & CRO Laura Beussman from CallRail | Ep. 507

May 14, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Attribution isn’t dead, but last-touch attribution by itself is garbage. That’s the starting point of this conversation between host Jay Schwedelson and Laura Beussman, CMO and CRO of CallRail. Beussman argues that marketers can’t afford to throw up their hands and ignore measurement entirely—if you can’t show how marketing investments drive revenue, your job is at risk. But the fix isn’t a perfect model that spits out a neat chart. It’s about getting smarter with the signals you already have, especially the ones hiding inside conversations.

Why Last-Touch Alone Fails

Jay opens with a common frustration: only about 5% of your audience is in-market at any time. Someone consumes your content for months, then finally clicks a search ad and converts. The search ad gets full credit. That’s misleading, and Beussman agrees—if you operate on a pure last-touch model, you will overinvest in bottom-of-funnel tactics like branded search while starving the awareness work that made that last click possible. The real mistake, she says, is going to either extreme: pretending you have a perfect attribution model, or pretending attribution is impossible and doing nothing. Both are oversimplifications. The answer is to layer in other signals.

Conversational AI and Self-Reported Attribution

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (01:51) **Attribution Is Not Dead, It's Clickbait** - Laura pushes back on the premise that attribution is garbage, arguing that marketers must demonstrate how investments drive revenue.
2 (02:49) **Why Last-Touch Attribution Is Garbage (But Not All Attribution)** - Jay and Laura agree that simplistic last-touch models are broken, but throwing out all measurement is equally wrong.
3 (04:29) **The Other Signals: Conversational AI & Self-Reported Attribution** - Laura reveals the specific signals marketers should layer on top of last-touch data.
4 (06:06) **The End of "How Did You Hear About Us?" Dropdowns** - AI is replacing clunky, unreliable self-report forms with passive conversation analysis.
5 (06:48) **AI Goes Beyond Attribution: Sentiment, Summaries & Coaching** - Laura explains how modern AI extracts far more than just the source of a lead.
6 (07:59) **Wearing the CMO & CRO Hats: Ending the Blame Game** - Laura describes how being accountable for both marketing and sales changes the entire dynamic.
7 (10:03) **How CallRail's Own Marketing Handles Attribution Challenges** - Laura shares the practical challenges her team faces, which are the same as every other marketer.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Jay Schwedelson

Show Notes

Partner with Jay! https://www.jayschwedelson.com/contact

ㅤ

Pre-order Jay Schwedelson’s new book, Stupider People Have Done It (out June 9, 2026). All net proceeds are donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research—let’s kick cancer’s butt: https://www.amazon.com/Stupider-People-Have-Done-Marketing/dp/1637635206

ㅤ

Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

ㅤ

MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, CallRail!

CallRail is the AI-powered lead intelligence platform that helps marketers prove exactly what’s driving results. With CallRail, you can connect every call, text, chat, and form submission directly to the campaign that generated it so you finally know what’s working and where to double down.

Plus, with built-in AI conversation intelligence, CallRail analyzes your customer conversations, captures leads 24/7, and gives you deeper insights into what your prospects actually care about.

If you’re tired of guessing about your marketing ROI and want real data behind your campaigns, CallRail has you covered.

Start a Free Trial Here: https://www.callrail.com/dothis

ㅤ

If your attribution model is telling you to dump everything into branded paid search, congratulations, you've just found a fast way to flatline your pipeline. Laura Beussman, CMO and CRO at CallRail, sat down with Jay Schwedelson to push back on the idea that attribution is dead, and to make the case that the real problem isn't measurement, it's marketers oversimplifying it. Spoiler: she has the patent and the 20 million call dataset to back it up.

ㅤ

Connect with Laura Beussman on LinkedIn and try CallRail free at