Outbound attribution glossary
Plain-language definitions for the terms behind 8leads.
Event
A single tracked outbound action: a cold email sent, opened, or replied to, a dial, a LinkedIn touch, a booked meeting, or a CRM change. 8leads normalizes events from every tool into one canonical model and uses them to credit revenue. One sent email usually creates several events, so an active team generates hundreds of thousands per month. Your plan's event allowance is how many we track each month.
Attribution
The practice of crediting closed-won revenue to the specific activities that produced it, so you know which channels, sequences, reps, and agents actually generate pipeline.
Multi-touch attribution
Crediting every touch in a deal's journey, not just the first or last. It reflects how outbound really works, where many touches across several channels combine to close a deal.
Attribution model
A rule for splitting credit across touches. Common models are first-touch, last-touch, linear, time-decay, U-shaped, and W-shaped. The same data tells different stories under different models.
Channel
An outbound motion such as cold email, cold calling, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, or AI SDR. 8leads attributes revenue across all of them in one model.
Sequence
A defined series of outbound steps a prospect moves through, such as an email cadence with calls and LinkedIn touches. 8leads shows each sequence's funnel from sent to closed-won.
Pipeline
The total value of open opportunities your outbound generated. Tying pipeline back to its source is the core job of attribution.
AI SDR
An AI agent that performs sales development work like prospecting and follow-up. 8leads benchmarks AI SDRs such as Artisan and 11x against human reps on reply rate, meetings, cost, and pipeline.
Blended ROI
Total revenue generated divided by total outbound spend across channels. It is the headline number teams use to defend or grow their outbound budget.
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