While so much of marketing and advertising has moved to online channels, there's no denying that the higher volume of output has made it more difficult to determine ROI and which channels are worth the investment. You'll have one visitor clicking through multiple platforms, such as your social media ad, blog posts, or website, before they convert to customers. That ends up begging the question, which one did the job?
There is immense success in digital, where 64% of businesses saying they brought in a new client from a video on Facebook to 80% engagement increases in email marketing and 33% of marketers using paid advertising to increase brand awareness. That's only a very small portion of online success, and the problem is that you need to know which ones are making the difference so that you can allocate your budget and resources appropriately.
This is where attribution models come in to save the day.
Marketing Attribution Models
Broadly speaking, marketing attribution is the practice of assessing all your brand and consumer touchpoints — as in, your marketing channels — to gain more insight into which one encouraged consumers to take action or make a sale. They help marketers determine which channels are useful for them by providing customer insight for future content and improve your overall understanding of consumer behavior, which plays a significant role in the improvement of meeting product or service demands.
There are multiple types of attribution models, with each one distributing the value of each touchpoint differently:
- First-touch attribution — in this attribution model, the credit is given to the marketing channel that makes the very first contact with a consumer. This means 100% of the value in marketing attribution is given to each single touchpoint, making the marketing channel with the most first-time interactions more valuable than the one with the least.
- Last-touch attribution — on the other end of the spectrum, there is the value of the very last touchpoint before a sale. In this case, 100% of the credit is given to the marketing channel that makes the last contact with a consumer before they decide to make a sale.
- Multi-touch attribution — switching gears a bit, this attribution model takes all touchpoints in a buyer's journey into account and divvies up a fraction of value to each channel for each consumer interaction. This allows marketers to evaluate the value of each marketing channel based on all its touchpoints with consumers on their way to making a sale.
Which model you decide to go with is ultimately up to you. Still, it's important to consider which one fits your business best, compliments your unique sales cycle, and what beneficial insights it provides your team. You should also pick a model that connects with the goals of your ad campaign since some strategies are growth-oriented, whereas others focus on efficiency.
Benefits of Marketing Attribution
There are several benefits to marketing attribution, but the key benefits are improving your ROI and saving more money by making ad spend more efficient. It also helps your content by telling you which channels work best, allowing you to optimize and personalize your content to the people it will resonate with most to improve blog content, marketing emails, and social media presence.
You can do this in one of two ways:
- You can invest in marketing attribution software
- Work with a media partner to help properly develop marketing attribution software
The latter is particularly helpful since it removes some burden off you. After all, attribution models can be complicated and difficult if you're not familiar with the practice.
Most marketers struggle with using big data for marketing. They are quick to adopt new digital tools but don’t measure their success, and often find the significance of ROI to be a challenge in marketing. More than half (60%) of companies in their report found that comparing the effectiveness of marketing across their different digital media is 'a major challenge.'"
This only further supports the need for an attribution model — first-touch, last-touch, or multi-touch — to clarify where your efforts are best spent and what resonates best with your audience.
As for simplifying the process to maximize your potential in digital marketing, working with a media partner like FOX 12 on your attribution marketing strategies allows you to move forward with all the knowledge, expertise, and experience of professionals who have been working with the practice for a long time.
As companies rely more on the internet as a business feature, attribution models will become increasingly essential. What you use and who you work with to implement and navigate these models and practices will determine how much of an advantage you will gain and the benefits you will enjoy.
