Digital‌ ‌Marketing‌ ‌Attribution‌

Track and locate your customers' entire journey from initial search to final purchase

Digital Marketing Attribution in simple terms is the discovery of various touch-points of customers’ journey from initial search to final purchase. It’s a science that defines how a customer engages through various channels and which touch-point resulted in final purchase. Marketing attribution links marketing function to revenue accountability and acts as a bridge between marketing data and sales data.

The various touch-points include:

• Display ads and paid search.
• Media Campaigns.
• Blogs.
• Social Channels.
• Email Marketing.
• White Paper.
• Product/Catalog Pages.
• Events and Trade shows.

Digital marketing offers multiple channels for marketers. With the help of marketing attribution, marketers can now trace and locate the path to purchase and measure its impact on the revenues.  Marketing attribution provides an opportunity to assess Return of Investment (ROI) by tracking the best channel that results in final purchase. But the results depend on the type of model that marketers chose primarily.

MARKETING ATTRIBUTION MODELS:

Marketing Attribution models are online marketing tools that enable marketers to gauge current trends and spending and predict future marketing strategy. The ultimate goal of marketers is to derive maximum out of every channel and apply a proper mix of attribution models help to make task easier.

Effective use of attribution models results in recording and analyzing various touch-points starting from where a prospect meets the brand until the conversion. These models also play an important role in providing information regarding which touch-points were crucial for the customer’s decision to purchase and what proportion of the turnover the individual model had.

A monetary value or percentage is allocated to every single channel as per its share and the weighing defines distribution of marketing budget. The data across all channels is aggregated and visualized to make sure every interaction is weighed precisely.

TYPES OF MARKETING ATTRIBUTION MODELS:

1. Single-Touch Attribution:

First-Touch Attribution: In this classic model, 100% of the conversion value is attributed to the first click that the customer had engaged. This model assumes that the customer converted after the very first visit advertisement he/she came through.

Last-Touch Attribution:  This model assigns full credit to the last contact point that the customer interacted before making the final purchase, disregarding any prior engagements.  

2. Multi-Touch Attribution:

These models assign credit to all contact points that customer came through leading to sealing the deal. Customers’ path to purchase can involve multiple devices (desktop, laptop, mobile) or campaign and that's where multi-touch attribution benefits.

1. Linear attribution:  Assigns equal weightage/proportion of conversion to all channels engaged by the customer leading to final purchase.

2. U-Shaped Attribution: The first-touch and last-touch attribution models are credited equally (40/40 percent). The remaining 20 percent is distributed among the various touch-points that a customer goes through during the buying journey.

Multi-touch attribution assigns credit to each touch-points, but is focused on maximum weightage to first and last interactions.

3. Time Decay Attribution

While this model also credits each channels but more emphasis is given to the touch-points that are closer to conversion. The closer a touch-point is to the time of conversion, the higher is its monetary share.

Time decay attribution captures importance of each interaction but gives greater weightage to the contact point. It assigns credit to each interaction of path to purchase, but gives greatest weightage to the touch-point that led to final conversion

4. Data-driven attribution

As the name suggests, “Data-driven” attribution maps the entire customers’ path to purchase and behavior accurately and in a detailed manner. It acquires data from your account to identify which keywords, ads and campaigns had the highest impact. This model is best among all because it utilizes your conversion data to determine the real influence that each keywords had throughout the path of purchase enabling marketers to calculate the exact ROI.

BENEFITS OF MARKETING ATTRIBUTION

Optimizes Marketing Budget: Attribution models helps provide insights to marketers on how the money was spent and how to best spend in the future by visualizing various contact points that receive the most engagements. This allows marketers to spend wisely, adjust their marketing spend and derive higher marketing ROI.

Higher ROI: Effective use of attribution models allows marketers to target the right audience, at the right time and with the right message resulting in increased conversions and increased marketing ROI.

Improves Personalization: Precise use of attribution models provide insights to marketers regarding the different channels undertaken by each customer for more efficient targeting in the future.

Improves Product Development: Marketers can gain a better understanding of their customers’ needs and behavior by applying proper mix of attribution models for various channels. This enables them to make necessary changes or updates in their products or services due to real-time insights provided by proper use of attribution models.

Finally:

The touch-points for path of purchase is different for each brand or campaign. Marketers can weigh and utilize these channels best suited to their campaign or company depending on various factors like existing traffic and time dependency.

If marketers desire to derive both qualitative and quantitative Return on Investment on their marketing spends, they need to integrate marketing attribution models into their marketing strategy.