Marketing Attribution Key To Digital Marketing Success

Marketing attribution is a key phrase used by many professionals in the industry – however, according to an article on Econsultancy, very few actually know what it really means. In simple terminology, marketing attribution is the art of defining the role that a specific digital channel will play in terms of how it impacts and informs the customer journey.

The customer journey nowadays is anything but straightforward and can often switch between different devices, different online platforms and different times of the day, the article notes. So in order to make an informed decision on how future strategies should look, professionals first need to understand how their online activity affects the customer – and how this will inform future company decisions. Analysing how customers interact with various channels on their journey prior to making a purchase, can help marketers determine which ones produce the highest ROI.

Attribution is very different to channel measurement, however, as channel measurement results in objective data. Attribution instead connects every element of the customer journey, and links the points all together; it can show how display ads aid with paid search strategies, and how this then affects SEO. It can also indicate how e-mail campaigns and social media efforts complement each other.

According to Econsultancy’s ‘Marketing Attribution: Understanding Value Across the Customer Journey’ report, sponsored by Google Analytics, 72% of respondents said attribution allowed them to better allocate their budget across the various channels, and 63% said it enabled them to better understand how the different digital channels all worked cohesively. More than half (58%) said attribution provided an invaluable insight in the makeup and behaviour of their target audience.