What Is Marketing Attribution And Why Does It Matter?

A typical move in basketball starts with a pass from the back. The ball will move up the court, fly through the hands of the forwards and bounce past defenders until it reaches the center who leaps and dunks. The player who scores gets the credit for the points—and the last player who makes the pass is awarded an assist. The values are not completely accurate. The choice of the first pass isn’t credited, nor are the feints of the other players as they pull defenders out of position, but as a way of assigning credit, the system of points and assists is a lot more accurate than just praising the final scorer.

Marketers face a similar challenge. The path from first contact with a lead to the final conversion can be far more complex than even the longest moves in basketball, with many points of contact along the way. The journey might start with a billboard or a print ad, pass through a website, an explanatory video, an online ad, an email newsletter and finally a coupon presented at a sales counter. To credit only the coupon for the sale would undervalue all of the moves along the way that were necessary to produce that final purchase.

Marketing attribution aims  to track each step of the marketing process from lead to customer and measure the effectiveness of each contact. It tries to identify stages that are undervalued or are receiving too much attention so that budgets and effort can be applied in the most efficient and the most effective places.

Is A Newsletter Worth More Than A Banner?

As digital marketing in general, and digital content in particular, has become  more complex, correct marketing attribution has become more important than ever. It’s easy enough to count views on a video, measure clicks on a website or a banner, or see how much an email newsletter contributes to traffic and to the take-up of special offers and requests for consultations. It’s much harder to understand how each of these points of engagement prepares the lead, builds trust and creates the relationship necessary to complete a sale and form a long-term customer relationship.

In this month’s series of blog posts, we’re going to look at how marketing attribution works. We’ll explore the weakness of final-click models and examine some of the alternatives, their advantages and disadvantages. We’ll look at how companies have benefitted from a valuation of the elements of their marketing channels that go beyond that go beyond the final conversion, and we’ll also see how marketing attribution can—and should—affect content.

Like a basketball move, a marketing process is not won with a single shot. The route has to be planned, leaving plenty of room for flexibility. Each move should exert influence and move the ball closer to the goal. Glory has to be shared among all the participants with the best performers awarded more responsibility and weak links pushed back or benched. Marketing Attribution allows marketers to score each part of a play from first pass to winning shot so that the team can play better and keep winning.

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