Algorithmic Attribution - If It Was Easy, Everybody Would Be Doing It
Getting attribution analysis right is challenging, but the payoffs make it well worth the effort.
Getting attribution analysis right is challenging, but the payoffs make it well worth the effort.
Attribution analysis – measuring the value that each marketing impression contributes to a campaign goal – is hard to get right. In fact, it’s so hard that a recent study commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and executed by Forrester Consulting found that 44 percent of interactive marketing executives use no attribution method whatsoever, and an additional 30 percent use the first-or-last click method (in spite of the fact that few marketers, agencies, or publishers stand behind that approach).
There are many reasons that getting attribution analysis right is hard – here are a few important ones:
But the fact that attribution analysis is hard is no excuse not to do it, and smart marketers recognize that some measurement is better than no measurement. The benefits are clear – better spending, channel, and strategy decisions lead to dramatic increases in campaign performance. But perhaps most importantly, getting attribution analysis right is the only way to close the direct-response loop on a multi-channel campaign in order to utilize the predictive analysis techniques that truly move the needle on campaign performance for interactive marketers. For example, WPP’s Media Innovation Group reports that better attribution analysis enabled one of its large banking clients to maintain a 25 percent conversion rate with 33 percent lower CPA on its multi-channel campaign. A detailed case study can be found here.
You can achieve similar success by utilizing the following phased approach:
According to the IAB study, only a scarce 11 percent of interactive marketers achieve this level of sophistication in leveraging algorithmic attribution models. But these rare marketers create tremendous value for their firms. And in addition to that, marketers with this experience are among the most highly sought after – and highly compensated – marketers in the world. The payoff is clearly worth the effort.