A Canadian radio GM sent me a fascinating lead-attribution study that every radio manager, media buyer, and marketer should see.
It was done by the marketing director of a Canadian roofing company, who shared how they measure advertising performance. It’s not with last-click attribution.
They assign every lead a measured attribution point.
• If radio was the only influence, radio gets 1.0 point.
• If radio sparked awareness and Google closed the loop, each gets 0.5.
• If multiple channels contributed, they divide the credit accordingly.
In other words, they measure marketing the way people make buying decisions.
Here's what they discovered:
• Radio generated 16 attributed lead points.
• Radio-driven leads closed at approximately 73%.
• Google Ads closed at roughly 27%.
• Website traffic increased dramatically while radio campaigns were on the air.
But the marketing director’s most interesting comment wasn't about the data. It was this:
“Customers often hear about the company on the radio first. Then, days or weeks later, they search us out by name on Google or click on one of our digital ads to contact us.”
If you only credit the click you miss the reason they searched in the first place.
This roofing company didn't discover that radio beats digital. Well, actually they did, but they discovered something far more important.
Radio and digital aren't competitors.
Radio creates demand. Digital captures it. Sound familiar?
The real mistake is giving all the credit to the channel that happened to be there at the finish line.
This is the conversation our sales team needs to be great at!
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This post is original content. Please share with credit. © 2026 Dave Sturgeon
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