Why businesses need a custom measurement and attribution model to maximise media spend effectiveness

There has never been a more important time for Marketers to understand the impact and effectiveness of each digital marketing channel they use. Consumers are exposed to many touch points in the consumer journey from the point of awareness through to conversion. Key digital media channels often used across this journey include but are not limited to paid social, native content, digital display, search advertising and video channels. Each of these play a vital role in the end conversion goal and existing default approaches misrepresent the influence of each touch-point.

This is due to a variety of limitations in place in today’s digital ecosystem with walled gardens, unreliable cookie data, duplicated platform measurement and various ways of interpreting data across different Analytics platforms. It can often be considered too cumbersome to investigate the role of each digital touchpoint that this is ignored and a default approach is used. This can lead to overspending or underspending on various channels due to mis-attribution and giving too much credit to the wrong channel. While it can be difficult for Marketers to truly understand which touch points are driving a conversion outcome for their brand or product without the right tools, it is both possible and recommended to undertake a bespoke measurement and attribution approach.

As back-end analytic platforms such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics which track website traffic and on-site interactions, use a last-click methodology they miscredit and under-estimate the impact of the various touch-points which led to the desired final outcome ie. subscription, lead, sale, download etc.

For years businesses have sought to overcome this hurdle by using a third party ad serving platform such as Google Marketing Platform (formerly DCM), Marin, MediaMath or others in-market. The limitation here, however, is that certain walled gardens such as Facebook cannot be appropriately measured using these platforms, therefore misattributing the impact of a highly important and widely used channel such as Facebook.

Instead Facebook wants us to use their conversion data which are not de-duped. Certain businesses may use platform numbers from the likes of Facebook, Google Ads etc however this is an outdated approach and leads to duplication in conversion numbers.

Here is a scenario to demonstrate this more clearly - a user may see a Facebook ad, be served videos on YouTube, visit the site after reading an eDM, be retargeted with display all before making a purchase by clicking on a paid search ad.

If a brand were to rely on their analytics platform it would discount all of the other interactions and credit the paid search ad for the conversion due to it being the final action before the sale. This is a poor reflection of the actual customer journey and the influences which occurred before the final step was taken. As a result a Marketer may saturate their Google Ads spend and inflate their Cost-Per-Acquisition in future, hurting their campaign or marketing efforts.

By relying on platform numbers, the business would assume multiple sales were made using the above customer journey scenario instead of one sale as Facebook, YouTube, Google Ads and the Display channel all individually count a sale and attribute it to their own channel. Conversely Third party ad servers would under-estimate the value of Facebook and other walled gardens therefore resulting in misattribution. Both Facebook and Google also have their own attribution products however they have an obvious underlying conflict of interest calling for a need to consider a bespoke approach specific to each brand and their data availability.

This can be done through the use of a custom attribution model or a proxy approach, to accurately determine which channels are ultimately driving the end goal and most effectively. Having a clear custom model which is unique to that particular brand and their customer behaviour provides Marketers with the confidence and understanding needed to know which marketing channels to incorporate into their planning and what budgets splits to apply. This can then be used in order to drive the most efficient outcome ultimately generating business growth through better understanding the customer journey and maximising efficiencies. It also negates any mistrust across internal teams within an organisation which tend to debate and disagree on this matter, often arguing their channel is most effective.

We work with businesses to build custom measurement solutions to accurately attribute sales and provide credit to the relevant channels to maximise marketing effectiveness. We do this analysing the individual impact each marketing channel has on achieving a business’s goal through corroborating sales and revenue data with paid media data and identifying clear alignment through the testing of various models. By using a combination of data points to create a reliable and robust model, Marketers are then provided with the confidence and understanding required to plan their marketing initiatives more effectively to drive the best outcome for their brand. With today’s fragmented digital media landscape, it is essential to question what measurement approach your business or media agency is currently using and if it is a true reflection of what is driving your business results.