Attribution marketing isn’t just about tracking the customer journey. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Its primary purpose is to turn findings into actionable insights to drive growth, and that involves communicating attribution insights to management.
At its core, attribution marketing connects the dots between customer touchpoints and conversions. It’s not just about knowing what worked, but understanding why it worked so you can optimize campaigns, allocate budgets wisely, and demonstrate marketing impact.
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about attribution marketing.
What is attribution marketing?
Attribution marketing is how marketers assess the value or return on investment (ROI) of the channels that connect them with potential customers. In other words, it’s the means by which the customer learned about and purchased your product or service.
It seems simple enough when you think about the final sale. But does a customer ever come directly to a website and make a purchase? Rarely. Multiple channels and messages were responsible for the final purchasing decision, such as the Facebook ad they initially clicked on or the email they received when they signed up for a newsletter. In an ideal world, you could track the entire customer journey from start to finish, with personal anecdotes from each customer about why they made the decisions they did along the way. But that’s neither realistic nor scalable.
With so many touchpoints to consider, operational marketing roles are becoming increasingly complex. Fortunately, several attribution marketing models have been introduced and evolved since the digital boom to address multichannel sales.
Types of Attribution Marketing Models
There are several types of attribution marketing models to help you track the success of your marketing strategies and grow your business. These include:
First interaction
In a first-touch attribution marketing model, all credit for the conversion is assigned to the first point of contact. So, if a customer discovered your social media page, viewed your content, and then made a purchase, your social media page would receive all the credit for the conversion.
A first interaction model is useful if you want to understand how customers first discovered your business.
Last interaction
In a last-touch attribution marketing model, all credit for the conversion is assigned to the last touchpoint in the customer journey. For example, if a customer found one of your blog posts in a search engine, browsed your social media page, and then decided to fill out your contact form, the credit for the conversion would go to the social media page.
Do you want to analyze which calls to action (CTAs) and campaigns are most effective in encouraging users to contact your business or make a purchase? If so, a last-touch model might be a good option for you. It’s definitely popular among many businesses, with 41% of marketers using this model.
Linear
With a linear attribution marketing model, each touchpoint in the customer journey receives equal credit for the conversion. So, if a user discovers your business on social media, reads one of your blog posts, and later decides to read your reviews before purchasing a product, each touchpoint would receive credit for the conversion.
A linear attribution marketing model helps you visualize the entire customer journey, from awareness to purchase.
Decay over time
In a time-decay attribution marketing model, credit for conversions is assigned to each touchpoint, but not equally. For example, the last touchpoint would receive a higher percentage of credit than the first touchpoint, as it is closer to the conversion.
If you want to analyze the steps users take before becoming customers, a time-decay model might be ideal for your business.
How to Use Attribution Marketing Reports
Creating attribution marketing reports doesn’t have to be complicated. In just a few steps, you can set them up and start using them to improve your marketing. Here’s how to get started:
- Get tools to track marketing data.
- Track customer interactions over a given period.
- Choose an attribution marketing model.
- Review the data using your selected model.
- Compile your findings into an organized report.
You may be able to automate some of these steps with an analytics or reporting tool. It all depends on the tools you have in your marketing technology stack.
So, what do you do with your attribution marketing reports once you have them? Use them to see which marketing channels and materials are generating the most leads and conversions, and then respond accordingly. If blog posts are responsible for the majority of your leads, for example, you might invest more time in that marketing channel in the future.
Challenges of attribution marketing
Here are some common digital attribution marketing challenges you might face:
- Market bias: This refers to consumers who were already in the market to buy a product before seeing your ad or message. However, your ad or message may receive credit for the conversion.
- Correlation-based bias : Some attribution marketing models can be subject to correlation-based bias when analyzing a customer journey, which can make it appear that one event caused another when in reality it may not have.
- Brand and Consumer Behavior: Some marketers find it difficult to understand how their attribution marketing model measures brand impact and perception, and how this influences consumer behavior.
- Using attribution insights: 70% of companies report struggling to determine what actions to take based on the insights they gain from their attribution marketing. Their attribution provides them with useful information, but they’re unsure how to leverage it.
4 Tips to Get the Most Out of Attribution Marketing
Here we share some of our top attribution marketing tips.
1. Integrate and centralize data
Unifying and centralizing data in a single platform is critical to gaining a complete view of your marketing performance. Since some platforms don’t provide as much data, connecting as many platforms as possible is key to ensuring you’re getting the full picture.
It’s important to include tools like email, CRM, and others. This will allow you to better understand the need for the product, which in turn will help you define the right message.
2. Use economical tools
Marketers are under increasing pressure to “do more with less.” If your company or clients are cutting costs, investing in attribution marketing becomes even more justifiable.
For B2B marketing measurement, you need a platform with a customizable dashboard and marketing reporting tools that allow you to easily visualize and interpret data, without spending a lot of money or requiring advanced math skills.
3. Adopt multi-interaction and hybrid models
Single-point attribution assigns all credit for a sale or conversion to a single touchpoint in the customer journey, typically the first or last interaction. Multi-interaction attribution, on the other hand, assigns credit to multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey, providing more comprehensive insights into the effectiveness of different marketing channels.
A hybrid model combines multi-interaction attribution with last-click attribution to better understand the role of different marketing channels. By adopting multi-interaction and hybrid models, you can overcome the limitations of traditional attribution models in marketing measurement.
4. Track and measure accurately
Not all platforms offer the same capabilities for measuring attribution marketing. For example, GA4 doesn’t allow you to retrieve user IDs in its API, which is essential for accessing more detailed attribution models. As a result, you won’t always have the data you need to track individual actions.
To simplify the process of tracking and measuring data, you can use tools like Supermetrics, which allow you to gather insights from all your data sources in just a few clicks and use more precise analysis to tell data-driven stories.
When you make data-driven marketing decisions, you can improve your strategies and grow your business. Attribution marketing is part of that decision-making framework, tracking the customer journey to determine which touchpoints drive conversions.
Attribution marketing is a continuous process of experimentation and adaptation. As privacy laws change and customer behaviors evolve, it’s important to adjust your attribution approach accordingly.
