What is Marketing Attribution?
Marketing Attribution
Marketing attribution is the way advertisers determine how marketing tactics – and subsequent customer interactions – contributed to sales, conversions or other goals.
These marketing metrics are used to identify the channels and messages that inspire potential buyers to take action. The models consider various touchpoints in the marketing funnel and their impact on consumer behaviour and conversion.
Why do we need marketing attribution?
When it comes to marketing, knowledge is power – the more you can learn about your past results, the better you can plan your future tactics. Analyzing your current marketing objectives and taking subsequent marketing actions can create a ripple effect for your brand’s strategy. It helps ensure that every single past interaction is accounted for and considered when making future decisions. With so many marketing touchpoints to consider and an increasingly complex customer journey, it’s crucial that brands take a step back to review where they stand and how they may be able to optimize.
What are the marketing attribution models?
Single-source attribution
This model is divided into two categories.
- First-touch attribution: As the name suggests, it takes into consideration the first channel the customer engaged with.
- Last-touch attribution: This model gives the credit to the last point before the sale.
Let`s say a customer clicked on your Google ad, downloaded a brochure, had a sales call with your Sales team. And then purchased the digital product.
According to the First-touch model, the best converting channel would be the Google Ad campaign.
If you use the Last-touch approach, it would be the sales call.
Multi-Source Attribution
The customer journey is not linear anymore which leads marketers to develop more complex marketing strategies to reach their target audience.
The Multi-source approach gives credit to each channel used in the journey and suggests different models.
Below are what these models are called and what they give credit to in the sales cycle:
- Linear: Equal credit to all the touchpoints.
- Time Decay: More recent marketing touchpoints.
- U-Shaped: The first touch (when the customer interacts for the first time) and the lead creation (when a customer fills in a form with name, last name, email, etc).
- W-Shaped: The first touch, lead creation, and the opportunity creation (when you add a customer`s info to your company CRM as it`s a good fit and considered as an “opportunity”).
- Full Path: The first touch, lead creation, opportunity creation. And final close (when the opportunity converts into a customer – the sometimes short, sometimes long-awaited “YAY” moment in the sales process).
Custom: Takes into account the specific needs and sales cycle of the company.
Weighted Multi-source Attribution
This model assigns value to all the interactions throughout the customer journey.
The difference from the previous model is that Multi-source attribution gives credit to the best performers in the marketing mix.
On the other hand, this approach is the most difficult one to apply, as it requires a detailed analysis of each interaction in the sales cycle.
How to choose the right attribution model?
The Single-touch model may be good for companies with less complex sales cycles. While the multi-touch approaches can work more effectively for businesses with multiple systems that customers go through before they buy.
Regardless of your product or service, the point is not to track every single stage but to focus on the valuable ones. Otherwise you`ll suffer from data chaos and fall into “analysis paralysis”.
You can outline your goals and always focus on the stages that give you the most value.
Speaking of value, now is the time to delve into what benefits marketing attribution offer to your business.