Northbeam vs Ruler Analytics in 2026: Ecommerce paid media attribution vs B2B CRM revenue attribution
Both platforms combine multi-touch attribution with media mix modeling, but they are built for opposite ends of the sales cycle: fast ecommerce checkouts versus long B2B deal cycles closing in a CRM.
Northbeam
Ruler Analytics- Northbeam is built for ecommerce and DTC brands optimizing paid social and search spend. Ruler Analytics is built for B2B lead generation businesses with offline sales cycles.
- Ruler Analytics attributes revenue from phone calls, trade show leads, and CRM deal stages. Northbeam attributes revenue from Shopify and WooCommerce ecommerce transactions.
- Ruler Analytics includes a dedicated customer success manager and white-glove onboarding on every paid tier, starting at £269 per month. Northbeam reserves its CSM for the Scale tier and up.
- Both tools gate media mix modeling behind their top pricing tier: Ruler at £1,349 per month (Advanced), Northbeam within its Scale/Enterprise tiers.
- Northbeam has creative-level analytics that break down ad performance by individual asset. Ruler Analytics has no equivalent creative reporting layer.
- Neither tool has self-serve signup. Both require a sales conversation or demo before you see a real quote.
Northbeam and Ruler Analytics both promise to fix the same underlying problem: platform-native attribution and last-click reporting overstate some channels and understate others. Past that shared starting point, they solve it for different buyers. Northbeam is built around paid social and search spend for DTC and ecommerce brands, with creative-level analytics and same-day data refresh tuned to media buyers making weekly budget calls. Ruler Analytics is built around B2B lead generation, closing the loop between a first ad click and a deal that closes in Salesforce or HubSpot four months later, including call tracking and trade show leads that never touch a pixel. Both offer media mix modeling, but Ruler locks it to its most expensive tier while Northbeam includes it from its middle tier up. Neither publishes self-serve pricing you can act on without a sales call.
The tools at a glance
Northbeam
Multi-touch attribution and media mix modeling for DTC and ecommerce brands
Northbeam is a marketing attribution and media mix modeling platform for direct-to-consumer and ecommerce brands running significant ad spend across Meta, Google, and TikTok. It replaces platform-native ROAS, which double-counts conversions across channels, with a first-party attribution layer that stays intact through iOS 14 and cookie deprecation.
The platform pairs multi-touch attribution with media mix modeling, refreshing data on a near-real-time basis rather than the weekly or monthly cycle typical of legacy MMM vendors. Budget scenario planning turns that data into concrete reallocation recommendations, and creative analytics break performance down to the individual ad asset, which matters for brands running heavy creative testing programs on Meta and TikTok.
Access requires a sales conversation at every tier; there is no published price and no self-serve trial. Onboarding takes two to four weeks for pixel implementation and data connector setup, and the statistical models need enough conversion volume to be reliable, which puts a practical floor on the ad spend level where Northbeam makes sense.
| Feature | Growth Contact sales | Scale Contact sales | Enterprise Contact sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-touch attribution | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Media mix modeling | No | Yes | Yes |
| Budget scenario planning | No | Yes | Yes |
| Creative analytics | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BI connector | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated CSM | No | Yes | Yes |
Ruler Analytics
Unified marketing measurement connecting every touchpoint to CRM revenue
Ruler Analytics is a UK-based marketing measurement platform built for B2B and lead-generation businesses that need marketing activity connected to closed-won revenue, not just form fills. It closes the loop between an ad click and a deal closing in Salesforce or HubSpot, including phone calls tracked through dynamic call tracking, trade show leads, and live chat sessions.
The platform runs multi-touch attribution across six models alongside media mix modeling for channels that never produce a trackable click, such as display, video, and out-of-home. A budget scenario planner builds saturation curves per channel to show where spend hits diminishing returns, and a 2026 AI Agent layer on the Advanced plan automates routine analysis and media planning.
Every plan, from the £269 per month Small tier up, includes a dedicated customer success manager and white-glove onboarding, which is unusual for a tool at this price point. The trade-off is that MMM and the AI Agent are locked to the £1,349 per month Advanced tier, and there is no free trial or self-serve signup at any level.
| Feature | Small From £269/month | Medium From £449/month | Large From £899/month | Advanced From £1,349/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-touch attribution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data-driven and impression attribution | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Marketing mix modelling | No | No | No | Yes |
| AI Agent (Analyst and Media Planner) | No | No | No | Yes |
| Dedicated CS manager | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| White-glove onboarding | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Northbeam | Ruler Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Primary use case | DTC and ecommerce paid media attribution | B2B lead generation and CRM revenue attribution |
| Multi-touch attribution | Yes | Yes (six models) |
| Media mix modeling | Scale tier and up | Advanced tier only (£1,349/mo) |
| Offline / CRM revenue attribution | No (ecommerce revenue via Shopify/WooCommerce, not CRM deal stages) | Yes (call tracking, trade shows, CRM deal stages) |
| Budget scenario planning | Scale tier and up | Yes, all plans (saturation curves) |
| Creative-level analytics | Yes | No |
| Ad platform integrations | Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest | 1,000+ integrations incl. Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok |
| BI / data warehouse connector | Scale tier and up (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) | Yes, all plans (Tableau, Power BI, Looker Studio) |
| Dedicated CSM included from | Scale tier | Small tier (every plan) |
| Self-serve signup | No, contact sales at every tier | No, demo required at every tier |
| Starting price | Contact sales, no published floor | From £269/month |
Which should you choose?
NorthbeamRuler AnalyticsNorthbeamRuler AnalyticsRuler AnalyticsNorthbeamThe deciding factor here is where your revenue actually gets recorded. If a sale means a checkout completing on Shopify within minutes of an ad click, Northbeam's ecommerce-native attribution and creative analytics are the better fit. If a sale means a lead moving through a CRM pipeline for weeks before a rep closes it, possibly starting with a phone call or a trade show conversation, Ruler Analytics is built specifically for that revenue path in a way Northbeam is not designed to capture.
Bottom line
Book a Northbeam demo if you are an ecommerce or DTC brand spending real money on paid social and need first-party attribution plus creative-level reporting. Book a Ruler Analytics demo if you run B2B lead generation and need offline conversions like calls and trade show leads tied back to CRM revenue. Both require a sales conversation before you see real pricing, so budget time for that before either can start delivering value.
Frequently asked questions
Is Northbeam or Ruler Analytics better for a B2B company?
Ruler Analytics is built specifically for B2B: it connects phone calls, trade show leads, and CRM deal stages back to the marketing touchpoints that generated them. Northbeam is optimized for ecommerce and DTC brands with fast checkout cycles and has no equivalent CRM revenue attribution.
Do both tools include media mix modeling on every plan?
No. Northbeam includes MMM from its Scale tier up, while Ruler Analytics locks MMM entirely to its top Advanced tier at £1,349 per month. If MMM is a requirement, check which vendor's pricing tier structure gets you there at a lower total cost for your other needed features.
Which platform has a free trial?
Neither Northbeam nor Ruler Analytics offers a free trial or self-serve signup. Both require booking a demo or sales call before you receive pricing, and Ruler additionally requires a demo before you can access the product at all.
Can Ruler Analytics track ecommerce sales the way Northbeam does?
Ruler Analytics supports ecommerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Demandware, but its differentiation is CRM and offline revenue matching. For pure ecommerce brands with digital-only conversion paths, Northbeam's ecommerce-native attribution and creative analytics are a more focused fit.
Why does Ruler Analytics include a dedicated CSM on its cheapest plan when Northbeam does not?
Ruler Analytics bundles white-glove onboarding and a dedicated customer success manager into every paid tier starting at £269 per month, reflecting how CRM and call-tracking integrations require more setup guidance. Northbeam reserves its dedicated CSM for the Scale tier and above, treating onboarding support as a feature of higher ad-spend accounts rather than a baseline inclusion.