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HockeyStack 101: Getting Your Data Right and Understanding Fundamentals

🎉Now that your instance is set up, your integrations are connected, and your funnel stages are defined, it's time to bring your data to life!

📝This guide walks you through the core concepts and tools you need to understand before you start building in HockeyStack. Completing this puts you in a strong position to get real value from the platform.

👀Each session below is consisted of short videos and brief explanation of what we will cover.

Session I: Funnel Stage Configuration & Validation

Your funnel stage numbers are only trustworthy if they match what's in your CRM — this video walks you through how to validate that.

You may have already seen parts of this during onboarding, but we recommend watching the full video as it covers both configuration and validation end to end.‼️

Funnel stage lives in Atlas -> Categorize -> Funnel Stages

❓This video covers:

  • What funnel stages are: key milestones in your marketing and sales journey (keeping it as close to your CRM as possible is critical)

  • How to create a funnel: how to name your stages, select the right stage type, define goals, set timestamps, and add amount fields for deal-level stages

  • How to preview your funnel stage numbers and cross-check them against your CRM in a separate tab using a static date range

  • Common reasons numbers don't match:

    • number of filters, conditional logic, and case sensitivity

    • When to use "is" vs. "contains": "is" is case sensitive, "contains" is not

    • Spacing after commas in multi-value filters will cause false results — always avoid it

    • When adding multiple values, always use "contains any of" instead of "contains"

📚An asynchronous walk-through on how to validate your funnel stages:

LogoHow to Validate your Funnel Stages | Notionhockeystack on Notion

Session II: Touchpoint & Channel

Touchpoints and channels are how HockeyStack categorizes your ingested data, that will mostly be used for attribution reporting down the line. They have been pre-configured by default, but it's important to validate and adjust them to match your data before moving forward‼️

Touchpoint & Channel live in Atlas -> Categorize -> Touchpoints

Part 1: What are Touchpoints and Channels

❓This video covers:

  • What touchpoint types are: high-level categorizations of raw actions flowing into HockeyStack (page views, ad impressions, form fills, email opens, etc.)

  • How channels are built on top of touchpoint types by adding filters (e.g., organic search = page views where UTM source contains "google")

  • How waterfall logic works: more specific mappings go on top, generic catch-alls go on the bottom

  • How to configure attribution weights (0 to 1) to control how much credit each touchpoint receives

  • What touchpoint groupings and drilldowns are and when to use them

📚More documentations on touchpoint & channel:

LogoTouchpoints | HockeyStackdocs.hockeystack.com
LogoConfiguring Touchpoints | HockeyStackdocs.hockeystack.com

Part 2: How to Validate Touchpoint and Channel

❓This video covers:

  • How to build a channel validation report using ad spend, total actions, channel, UTM source, UTM medium, and touchpoint type

  • How to identify unmapped channels in the report and fix them in the channel configuration

Session III: Breakdown

Breakdowns are static properties, like region, industry, or opportunity type, used to slice your data in reporting.

Breakdown lives in Atlas -> Categorize -> Breakdowns

Video 1: What Are Breakdowns and How to Configure Them

❓This video covers:

  • What breakdowns are: static properties used to slice your data (e.g., 100 MQLs broken down by region or industry)

  • How to create a breakdown by selecting a source, object, and property from your CRM

    • How to map and group values into custom buckets (e.g., grouping countries into AMER or EMEA regions)

    • How to handle numeric fields: always group them into ranges rather than keeping original values

📚More documentations on breakdown:

LogoBreakdowns | HockeyStackdocs.hockeystack.com

Video 2: How Breakdowns Differs from Touchpoints

Many customers mix up breakdowns and touchpoints — this video clarifies how each is used in reporting.

❓This video covers:

  • The core difference: touchpoints are dynamic (categorize journey data that occur before a goal), breakdowns are static (properties tied to a company or deal regardless of journey)

  • When to use each: touchpoints for attribution and channel analysis, breakdowns for slicing and segmenting goal data

Session IV: Attribution

When something happens, whether a deal closed or a form filled, it's rarely because of a single interaction. Attribution is how you assign credit to the touchpoints across a buyer journey, so you can answer questions like "which campaigns are influencing pipeline", "how a channel is performing, and where to invest more", etc.

HockeyStack offers six out-of-the-box attribution models, each distributing credit differently across touchpoints: Linear, First Touch, Last Touch, Uniform, Time Decay, Position Based.

📚More explanation and documentation on attribution models:

LogoAttribution Models | HockeyStackdocs.hockeystack.com

Session V: Attribution Page

The attribution page is a pre-configured dashboard that shows your funnel stages attributed by channel and touchpoint.

Attribution page lives in Analytics -> Attribution Views

❓This video covers:

  • How the attribution page works: a breakdown of funnel stage performance by channel and touchpoint

    • How to filter by touchpoint, breakdown, and date range to narrow your analysis

    • How to use record-level drill-downs to trace individual journeys

    • How to create and save custom views for ongoing analysis

  • How to use the page to identify and reduce no attribution (target: 5-10%)

    • Common cause including: incomplete website tracking, unmapped sales activities, and touchpoints not referenced in any channel

Congratulations, you've completed the HockeyStack Platform 101 guide!

As next, you will view the last series within your implementation process on how to build a report in HockeyStack.

PreviousHockeyStack 101: Navigating the PlatformNextHockeyStack 101: Becoming an Expert in Reporting

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