Analyzing and Optimizing Your Digital Marketing Performance
Analyzing and Optimizing Your Digital Marketing Performance
17 Attribution
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to.
- Explain what marketing attribution is and how to use it
- Describe several marketing attribution approaches
- List the required steps to develop a marketing attribution model
- Name several online tools that provide marketing attribution
Marketing Attribution
Marketing attribution is the practice of evaluating the marketing touch points a customer encounters on their path to a desired marketing outcome. A desired outcome is often a purchase but could also include other outcomes and actions such as a signing up for an email newsletter sign-up, downloading a research paper, booking a demo, etc. The goal of attribution is to determine which marketing channels and messages have had the greatest impact on a customer’s decision to convert or take the desired next step. Once marketers understand which channels and messages are most successful, they can optimize their efforts and budgets.
To make this clear, let’s walk through a fictitious scenario.
Attribution Scenario
Let’s assume that a customer was exposed to several marketing campaigns and marketing messages across a variety of marketing channels, such as:
In the simplified customer journey above, we see that a customer made a $700 purchase after seeing:
- a display ad,
- an organic search result,
- a paid ad, and
- a social media post.
Now, the question comes up, to which channel or activity do we attribute this $700 purchase? Or, how much of that $700 do we credit to each marketing activity, campaign, or touchpoint?
Unfortunately, even with our current digital marketing analytics systems, it is difficult to precisely answer these questions. However, there are a few common industry models and practices that marketers can use to approximate the contributions these campaigns made to the ultimate purchases or conversions:
- First or last touch attribution
- Even (linear) attribution
- Time decay attribution
- Starter / Player / Closer / “U” attribution
- Custom attribution
Let’s take a closer look at each of these different attribution approaches.
First or Last Touch (or Interaction) Attribution
First touch attribution gives full credit to the first touchpoint in the customer journey. In the above scenario, this would mean that the marketer would credit their “Display Ad” campaign with the entire $700 purchase amount.
Similarly, last touch attribution gives full credit to the last touchpoint in the customer journey. In our scenario, that would give “Social Media” full credit for the $700 purchase.
The main benefit of this model is that it is simple to calculate and track. That said, it under represents the branding, influence, and sales effects the other campaigns may have had in convincing that customer to purchase.
Now, let’s practice …
H5P: First Touch Marketing Attribution Model
A customer has made a purchase for $625.
Drag the proper amounts from the