2015: The Year We Get Closer to Resolving the Great Attribution Agitation

Will this finally be the year that marketers are able to effectively attribute their marketing efforts?

Mobile is supremely important for marketers. If it isn’t, it should be. In 2014, we finally saw previously skeptical marketers stepping up to test, justify, and grow dedicated mobile budgets. This trend is a distinct acknowledgement of just how dominant smartphones and tablets have become in the consumer day-to-day experience. Think of how often you look at your phone. Perhaps you’re even reading this very article on a smartphone.

So as marketers now embrace mobile’s place in the average consumer’s day and thus its place in the new path to purchase — it’s never been more important to focus on multichannel impact and attribution. In fact, I predict 2015 will be “the year of attribution,” though I’ll also predict we’ll end the year, not with the solution, but rather with a necessarily better understanding of the possibilities.

No matter what you call it (mobile-first, cross-channel, omni-channel), the exponential number of factors involved in harnessing a strategic solution that both accounts for and optimizes all the moving parts and outcomes, demands a long-term, methodical approach. This is good news because it also means long-term opportunity, near-term low-hanging fruit, and an arena in which to pioneer the building blocks of tomorrow’s solutions. This is also an alert and call for action.

There is no one formula for success. However, I would recommend a strategy comprised of immediate, achievable goals, and long-term overarching initiatives. In other words, have the seamlessly integrated and attributable personalized omni-channel experience in your future view, but focus on concrete (even sub-channel specific) wins in the short-term. These various building blocks are the ones that will eventually combine to deliver the Holy Grail solution.

Getting to Attribution

Consider that the path to mobile voicemail began with an answering machine. We’ve already come so far. So, just like that, as we push the envelope with regard to attribution, new technologies will continue to accrete and combine. Attribution is currently just out of reach on the top shelf, but with new technologies serving as building blocks, the best-in-class will eventually be able to reach it. We’re getting there.

Here are some developments that we should expect to see in 2015:

  1. Measuring Foot Traffic: The industry as a whole will finally understand we can monitor and measure foot traffic driven by mobile impressions. But more importantly, it will gain a better understanding of when and why this can be a meaningful metric, while simultaneously taking technology and privacy limitations into consideration.
  2. New, Better Metrics: We finally will stop using click-through rate (CTR) as a default metric and endeavoring to optimize it. We will fully turn our attention and our systems to the more meaningful, secondary actions, around which we can tune our campaigns.
  3. Mobile as a Driver: Marketers will more fully realize the capacity for mobile to drive and optimize those secondary actions and downstream behaviors, in general (store locator utility, inquiries, and the like). We will establish standard metrics for measuring a core set of these secondary actions.
  4. Power Lifting: At the same time, we will begin to define common methods for measuring/evaluating another key metric driven by strong mobile marketing: Visitation and Purchase Lift. A visit to a site or brick-and-mortar location enables a purchase, and purchase is the bottom line attribution goal. Definitive ways to measure mobile attributable lift will begin to take shape.
  5. Privacy Policy: Because mobile generates more individual and behavior data then any previous channel, lawmakers and regulators will continue to address consumer privacy concerns. Concurrently, technology will evolve to aid both the consumer and marketer. Meanwhile, savvy marketers should focus on channel specific opt-ins – especially with regard to mobile.

We love to dub “the year of” whatever the platform du jour may be. As an industry, we champ at the bit to do so, as proof of maturation or justification of our investments. Yet, as mobile ad-tech continues to mature, and adoption steadily rises — we need not fret the year-of designation. We’re getting over it, getting it on the possibilities, and fully appreciating the long-term opportunity that is mobile-led, fully attributed ad marketing.

Subscribe to get your daily business insights

Whitepapers

US Mobile Streaming Behavior
Whitepaper | Mobile

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

5y

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...

View resource
Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups
Whitepaper | Analyzing Customer Data

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups

5y

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics f...

Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...

View resource
Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its people
Whitepaper | Digital Marketing

Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its peopl...

2y

Learning to win the talent war: how digital market...

This report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...

View resource
Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy
Report | Digital Transformation

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy

1m

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Exp...

Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...

View resource