MARKETING

ATTRIBUTION

HOW-TO GUIDE
 Marketing Attribution
HOW-TO GUIDE

Marketers have long pursued a goal that was once presumed unattainable: knowing with
certainty what the impact is of any promotional or advertising spending. With the growth of digital
marketing in the past two decades, marketers have better analytic data about clicks, views, and
other buyer behaviors that have a relationship to conversion.

The problem, however, is not one of simply measuring clicks or views; it is understanding and
measuring the entire journey of a buyer as they travel from initial awareness to conversion. Specif-
ically, how many promotional milestones or touch points did the buyer encounter?

How influential was each one? Marketers want to know because precise information about the
influence and effectiveness of each message, communication, or ad allows unprecedented opti-
mization of each marketing channel. Marketing attribution is the science of understanding the
influence of each marketing channel on a buyer's journey.

This How-to Guide will explain marketing attribution, review various marketing attribution models,
discuss when it makes sense to use it, and conclude with an action plan for implementing
marketing attribution.

What Is Marketing Attribution?

To help illustrate what marketing attribution is, and why it is helpful, consider a typical buyer
journey. A buyer has a need for a solution and solicits recommendations from friends through a
social media app on their smartphone.

This triggers the display of a social media ad, which gets the buyer's attention. Their clicks
on the ad and see an opportunity to download a white paper. Completing a short form, they
provides their email address where a link to the white paper is sent. They review the email
several days later on their PC, and after reviewing the white paper, does an organic search for
more information and reviews.

Reading a review on a website, the buyer sees a banner ad, which the click, that takes them to
a landing page on the vendor's website. With their Information needs satisfied, the buyer clicks
the "Buy Now" button on the landing page, places their order in the cart and checks out.

This scenario reveals the challenge of and the need for marketing attribution. The key ques-
tion is, which touch point was most influential in producing the conversion? The challenge in
tracking the buyer's journey is that it occurred across multiple devices and involved multiple
touch points. Even just tracing the digital path the buyer followed is difficult.

2 MARKETING ATTRIBUTION HOW-TO GUIDE

A further complication is that this scenario represents just one of many possible paths a buyer
might follow to conversion, each one involving different devices and touch points.

Marketing attribution has emerged to help marketers deal with the scenario just described. It's
a process that gives credit to the marketing channels that deserve it, in proportion to each chan-
nels contribution to the conversion. It allows marketers to more precisely understand the influence
and contribution of each channel or touch point.

With such an understanding, marketers can make fact-based decisions about how to optimize the
entire mix of promotions, communications, and ads through all channels. The result of this attri-
bution-driven optimization process is higher conversion rates, increased revenue, and potentially
shorter sales cycles.

Marketing Attribution Models

Conceptually, marketing attribution is not difficult to understand. The difficulty is implementing
it accurately. Some sort of model is needed to implement marketing attribution. In theory, you
would use an attribution model that traces the entire customer journey, accounting for both online
and offline channels of influence in that path. Full customer path attribution represents the gold
standard goal. Getting there is probably an evolutionary process, particularly for firms that are just
beginning to experiment with attribution.

A number of marketing attribution models exist, ranging from relatively simplistic to more
comprehensive. Which model you choose depends on how your customers typically convert,
your analytics acumen, and a general willingness to invest in a marketing attribution effort.

Here are descriptions of some of the common models:

First click. Also known as first-touch, this model essentially credits the entire customer
purchase or conversion to the first click, touch, or encounter that customer had. For example,
the first touch point in a customer buying journey gets 100% attribution for a conversion, even
if other touch points may have influenced the customer along the way. If this customer journey
is typically extremely short, this model may make sense. In situations where the customer
journey is long, involving many other touch points, it makes little sense to attribute everything
to the first touch or click. It may hold true that the first touch was the most influential, but if the
customer's path to conversion included other touch points, this model is not recommended.

Last click. Similar to the first click model, except the attribution now goes entirely to the last
touch point prior to conversion. The premise of this model is that the last touch point in the
customer journey created the conversion, so it gets 100% of the attribution, even if there were
many touch points along the way. This model seems to make some sense and it has eenjoyed
a lot of popularity. But it is increasingly falling out of favor because it doesn't account for any
downstream influences that very likely factored in the conversion.

3 MARKETING ATTRIBUTION HOW-TO GUIDE

 Linear or Equality. Unlike the first click or last click models, the equality model acknowledges
multiple touch points in the customer buying journey, assigning equal attribution to each one.
For example, if a customer's journey to conversion involved four different touch points, each
one is assigned 25% attribution under this model. Equality is a good evolutionary step up from
first or last click models, but it's not without some flaws, the biggest of which is assuming that
all touch points are equally effective and influential, which is rarely the case.

Custom. A custom model is the best option, and the one that most closely approaches true
customer path attribution. This model recognizes that each firm or solution has a unique
customer path to conversion, and a model is built to provide precise attribution to all the touch
points in that path. Implementing a custom model that attributes an accurate percentage for
each touch point's contribution requires a more advanced analytics advanced analytics capab-
ility and the technology assistance of an attribution vendor. It's a major improvement over the
linear model because it recognizes that not all touch points are equally influential. The greatest
attribution is given to the touch points that have the greatest impact on the phases of the
customer journey. If, for example, analytics show that the touch points in the discovery phase
of the journey are most impact, they might receive 60% of the attribution, with the remaining
40% divided in a similar manner across the awareness, consideration, and decision phases of
the buying process.

There are, of course, other attribution models, as well as variations on the ones described here, but
these are the most frequently encountered.

When Does Marketing Attribution Make Sense?

Marketing attribution is a newer marketing discipline, and marketers who love new approaches,
or are simply eager to link marketing more closely to revenue generation, will eagerly embrace it.
Before jumping into the deep end of the marketing attribution pool, it's worth assessing your situ-
ation to see if it makes sense. Here are some things to consider as you weigh the pros and cons of
marketing attribution:

Do you have a culture that will support marketing attribution? This discipline is very data and
analytics driven. Perhaps the organizations that need marketing attribution most are those that
have long been driven or guided by intuition, opinion, or conjecture. However, these organiza-
tions are also least prepared for the shift to a data-driven marketing culture. For such organiza-
tions, the move to marketing attribution may seem threatening to some and therefore requires
care and sensitivity in planning this move.

4 MARKETING ATTRIBUTION HOW-TO GUIDE

 Do you have a relatively short or simple path to customer conversion? While it is rare, there
are some firms whose customers travel a short, streamlined path from awareness to conver-
sion. So short, in fact, that data and analytics needed to understand attribution are enviably
simple. If your company is one of the few where first click or last click attribution are one and
the same, where few or no other touch points influence the customer journey to conversion,
then attribution is easy. Consider yourself fortunate if this is your situation, but also understand
that many forces outside your control, including competitors, will likely introduce change into
your customers' journey.

What are you doing with the data you already have? As previously stated, marketing attribu-
tion is very data and analytics driven. Chances are, however, that even if you haven't imple-
mented marketing attribution, you have some you have some marketing analytics data--what
are you going to do with it? If you're not already using the analytics data you have to its fullest
potential, you're probably not ready to implement marketing attribution, which will take your
analytics processes to the next level.

Bottom Line
Properly implemented marketing attribution can help improve the ROI of many marketing
efforts. The fact-­based decisions that marketing attribution enables can help your marketing and
advertising perform at a higher level, and potentially at a lower cost. At the same time, it is important
to understand that marketing attribution will not fix a fundamentally unsound marketing strategy,
although it may provide insights about how to fix it.
To work best, the marketing attribution discipline needs the support of a thoughtfully crafted marketing
plan, and vice-­versa. Finally, recognize that marketing attribution is not a "once and one" task but an
ongoing effort that yields maximum benefits when it becomes woven into the fabric of marketing.

Implementing Marketing Attribution

Properly implemented, marketing attribution can provide some amazing insights about the true
value of your promotional communications and advertising. What does it take to start getting these
insights? Below are some steps you can follow.

5 MARKETING ATTRIBUTION HOW-TO GUIDE

 Action Plan
STEP 1 - Assess the Need and Fit

Assess the Needs and

1 Assess The
Need And Fit Benefits of Marketing
Attribution

Consider a
2 Vendor and/or If you're guessing when it comes
Advisor to allocating spending across
various marketing channels,
you will probably get significant
benefits from marketing attribu-
Understand Path tion. This is even more accurate
3 and Choose if your marketing spending is
Model
substantial and your customers
navigate a moderate to
complex path to purchase.

Data Collection, For marketing attribution to

4 Analysis and succeed, you must have a
Usage culture that embraces analytics.

A simple test is this: are you

already using the marketing
analytics data that is available
to you? If so, you have some
level of cultural readiness to
implement marketing attribution.
If not, you need to understand
why you think marketing attribu-
tion will work for you.

6 MARKETING ATTRIBUTION HOW-TO GUIDE

 Log in and download
the complete report!
Not registered yet? Sign up for free to access
over 350 reports, guides, and more than 100 webinars.

CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT

Research
Tools
Training
Software
Demand Metric has the world’s largest library
of practical marketing tools and templates,
all ready for you to customize.

LEARN MORE
Playbooks & Training
Toolkits Courses

Stay on top of the marketing

Our Playbooks are built with best
practices in mind. They contain
proven processes and a detailed
action plan that will help you achieve
your objectives and deliver results.
landscape and learn new skills. Our
on-demand video training courses
will help you and your team build
effective marketing processes on
more than 20 topics.

Webinars Tools &

Templates

Having clear insight into

Industry professionals,
thought leaders, and
Demand Metric analysts
share research results
and best practices that
will help you achieve
the best results.
both key metrics and what’s
behind them is necessary
to improve your end results.
Demonstrate the value your
marketing organization is
delivering with our tools
and templates.

Reports &
Guides

Based on surveys conducted with our member base, we share

how your peers are tackling a broad range of marketing topics
in different formats such as Benchmark Reports, Solution
Studies, Frameworks, and How-to Guides.

sign up for a free trial

It’s time to optimize your
core Marketing Processes.

Not registered yet? Sign up for free to access this report

and over 350 other practical resources for modern marketers.

GET STARTED