Secrets to streamlining marketing attribution across channels

In today’s omnichannel world, customers interact with brands across multiple touchpoints before making a purchase. This makes it challenging for marketers to track and measure the impact of each touchpoint on the customer journey. That is when marketing attribution arises. But what does marketing attribution exactly mean?

Definition of Marketing attribution

Marketing attribution is the process of determining which marketing channels and touchpoints led to a customer conversion. This information can be used to optimize marketing campaigns and allocate budgets more effectively.

For example, if you know that your email marketing campaigns are generating a lot of leads, but your social media campaigns aren’t, you can shift more of your budget to email marketing. Or, if you know that your landing pages are converting a lot of visitors, but your product pages aren’t, you can focus on improving your product pages.

The importance of attribution for marketing teams

Attribution is important for marketing teams because it helps them to:

• Improve marketing ROI: By understanding which channels and campaigns drive sales, marketing teams can allocate their resources more effectively and improve their ROI.
• Target customers more precisely: Attribution data can help marketing teams identify their most profitable customer segments and target them with more relevant and effective marketing messages.
• Measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns: Attribution data can be used to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Marketing attribution models

There are seven main types of marketing attribution models:

1. First-touch attribution: All credit is given to the first interaction/touchpoint leading to a conversion. This could be an ad click, webpage visit, etc.
2. Last-touch attribution: The last interaction/touchpoint before conversion gets sole credit. For example, if a customer clicked an ad 6 months ago but just made a purchase, only the purchase interaction is attributed.
3. Linear attribution: Credit is evenly distributed among all touchpoints. If a customer engages with your brand via 5 different channels before converting, each one gets 20% of the “credit” for the sale.
4. Time-decay attribution: Touchpoints decay in importance over time but all still receive partial credit based on recency. More recent interactions like the last email open get higher percentages.
5. U-shaped attribution: The first interaction and last interaction before conversion receive the most credit, with diminishing amounts for those in between. Gives weight to awareness and completion stages.
6. W-shaped attribution: Similar to U but with an added peak in the middle, acknowledging reinforcing touchpoints between awareness and conversion.
7. Custom/multichannel attribution: Allows marketers to build custom models accounting for how different touchpoints like paid media, emails, websites, etc work together based on analytics and hypotheses.

How to choose an attribution model?

The best marketing attribution model for a particular business will depend on its specific needs and goals. However, there are a few general tips for choosing an attribution model:

• Data availability: What interactions and behaviors are you actually able to track across channels? The model should work with your tracking capabilities.
• Marketing goals: Are you seeking awareness, engagement, or conversions? Models like first-touch may work best for brand metrics, while last-touch fits conversion goals.
• Budget allocation: Will attribution help you optimize large budgets across TV, print, and online? Consider linear or time-decay. Smaller budgets could use first-touch.
• Industry: Industries like travel with long buying cycles suit time-decay or custom models. If you offer a low-commitment product, last-touch may be ideal.
• Testing: Analysis of different models against your historical conversion data can reveal what works best. A/B tests let you validate assumptions.
• Customer journey: Mapping typical paths will clue you into the impact of awareness and repeat touches. U-shaped often mimics long-tail effects.

Overcome the challenges of marketing attribution

There are a number of ways that businesses can overcome the challenges of marketing attribution. One way is to use a marketing attribution tool. A marketing attribution tool is a software platform that helps businesses track and measure the impact of different marketing channels on customer conversions. These tools can identify which channels are most effective at driving conversions and optimize marketing spending accordingly.

Another way to overcome the challenges of marketing attribution is to use a customer data platform like DataS as it helps businesses collect and unify customer data from multiple sources, track customer interactions across multiple channels, and get a better understanding of the customer journey.

DataS CDP can also be integrated with a marketing attribution tool to help businesses track and measure the impact of different marketing channels on customer conversions. This can help businesses identify which channels are most effective at driving conversions and optimize their marketing spend accordingly.