Reasons for Adopting Attribution Modelling in Digital Marketing

A good number of our clients and prospects have asked us the question “Why do attribution models matter in digital marketing?” The answer is simple, as a marketer who runs multiple ads on different platforms, it’s usually hard to determine which combination of touchpoints (PPC keywords, display ads, landing pages, SEO, etc.) generates the highest leads in the sales funnel (conversion path).

Therefore, attribution models give the marketer a bird's-eye view of every customer’s journey down the conversion path.

Example of Attribution Modelling

Let’s take for instance two customers (Customer A and Customer B) who are both searching for the same product online.

1. If Customer A came to your website with the intention of buying a product and your website is able to provide the product, then customer A’s journey was completed in 1 step.
2. Customer B may follow a completely different conversion path: he/she first clicked on your company’s ad on Facebook, interacted with your website, downloaded your eBook, and then reached out to place an order a week later.

In the second scenario, it’s evident that customer B’s journey has many touchpoints, which makes it unreasonable to give all the credit to the last touchpoint, thereby missing out on all the touchpoints along the way that influenced his/her choice to invest in your brand.

Therefore, the second example we illustrated above best describes a multi-touch conversion route, and it’s the most real way to describe the realities of today’s online sales conversion. Hence, by understanding which part of the sales funnel effort pushes your consumers to take action, then you’ll be able to guide them better into the sales funnel for a higher conversion success rate.

Attribution Modeling & Data-Driven Marketing

As a marketer, it’s never convenient to gather customer’s data from multiple marketing sources especially when there are seemingly uncountable platforms, devices, and advertising sources. If the advertising sources are managed separately, you’ll need to deploy or implement a strategic solution that can furnish you with accurate and holistic view of how your marketing tactics are performing.

It’s to this end that attribution modeling was invented, and ever since its invention, it has been making it incredibly possible for marketers to collect audience data, analyze the performance of your advertising and marketing tactics (traffic sources, acquisition paths, and acquisition channels), report actionable insights on how to optimize marketing budgets and improve customers experiences.