Marketing attribution explained.

Marketing attribution is the practice of assigning credit for conversions or revenue to marketing touchpoints in order to pinpoint the touchpoints and channels that are working best and allocate resources accordingly.

In this guide:

• What is marketing attribution?
• Why is marketing attribution important?
• Marketing attribution models
• Choosing a marketing attribution model
• Marketing attribution strategies
• How often should you check your marketing attribution model?
• Is it difficult to use a marketing attribution model?
• What are some challenges that come with marketing attribution?
• Get started with marketing attribution

What is marketing attribution?

Marketing attribution is the process of determining which interactions influence a customer to purchase from your brand. It lets you know what route a customer took to your products.

With this information, marketers can identify which campaigns or channels drive the most conversions. If you’ve ever been asked how you heard about a product, you’ve been part of marketing attribution.

Using attribution in marketing also helps marketing teams determine how to target campaigns to reach more high-converting customers or to target existing customers for additional purchases.

Marketing attribution helps align marketing and sales data at all stages of the sales funnel — from initial lead qualification through to conversion.

Why is marketing attribution important?

Marketing attribution offers a range of benefits to marketing teams:

• Future personalization opportunities. When you understand the factors behind each conversion, you are in a better position to personalize marketing and sales interactions so they’re more effective in the future.
• Higher ROI. To maximize the return on investment of your marketing efforts, it’s critical to know which channels deliver the highest conversion rates. Attribution reveals that information.
• Product improvement. Understanding how customers approach your brand and its offerings can give you information about the features or value that customers are looking for. With that insight, you can improve your products so that they align with customer needs.
• Justifying marketing value. Marketing attribution helps to justify marketing expenditures to win buy-in from stakeholders. For example, if your CEO asks why you are spending $100,000 on billboard ads when most of your purchases are made online, marketing attribution would allow you to respond with data that proves billboard advertising is effective.

Marketing attribution models.

There are two main types of marketing attribution models:

1. Single-source models are simpler and focus on identifying just one touchpoint in the buyer’s journey that is most influential in conversion. Single-source models assume that credit can be given to just one channel or touchpoint.
2. Multi-source models are more complex and weigh the relative influence of multiple touchpoints.

Attribution models work best when they’re properly matched to your business needs. For example, if you’re looking to track a single touchpoint like top-of-funnel marketing conversions, you will likely rely on single-source attribution modeling.

The two model types have different variations, each with its pros, cons, and optimal use cases.

Single-source marketing attribution models.

These single-source attribution model variations assign credit to a specific marketing touchpoint in the buyer’s journey.

First-touch models.

First-touch models assume that customers converted after the first marketing asset they encountered. It gives full credit to this first touchpoint, regardless of any other channel interactions.

• Pros. Because first-touch models show which marketing methods catch the eye of new customers, they’re a great option for when you want to understand top-of-funnel buyers.
• Cons. First-touch models fail to account for any customer interactions after the initial touch, and they might unfairly bias marketers against other channels. For example, the channel that gets full credit using this model might generate website visits but not lead to sales conversions.

Last-touch models.

Last-touch models give full attribution to the customer’s last interaction before making a purchase, without accounting for prior interactions. This type assumes that customers converted after the final marketing asset they encountered and gives full credit to this final touchpoint, regardless of prior messaging. This is sometimes called last-click attribution.

• Pros. Last-touch models are useful when you want to know what drives your customers to action, even if it’s after they have been primed through other channels.
• Cons. Last-touch models fail to account for any customer interactions before the final touch, so you have no idea how much those other channels might have influenced the final outcome.

Multi-source marketing attribution models.

Multi-touch attribution modeling aims to assign the right amount of value to each touchpoint or channel that the buyer encounters. These models are often considered more accurate because they assign value to all points along a customer’s journey rather than just one.

One of the challenges in attribution modeling is that it’s not always possible to truly know each channel’s contribution. Offline sources like word of mouth and brand equity can have an influence that is impossible to calculate.

Despite these challenges, multi-touch attribution models aim to put together the pieces of the puzzle in different ways.

Linear marketing attribution.

Linear attribution is a simple multi-source attribution model that aims to identify all key touchpoints relevant in driving a purchase and assign equal weight to each one. But if some interactions were more important than others, it won't reveal the most influential ones.

Position-based marketing attribution.

This model assigns 40% of the credit for conversion to the first touchpoint and another 40% to the touchpoint that immediately precedes a conversion. The remaining 20% of credit is split between other touchpoints. But it assumes the first touch and the pre-conversion touch are the most important.

W-shaped marketing attribution.

Under a W-shaped attribution model, the first touch, the lead creation touch, and the opportunity creation touch each receive 30% of the credit. These touchpoints are often the most influential on customers. But this model affords little weight to touchpoints that occur after the opportunity is created.

Time decay marketing attribution.

This model assigns the greatest credit to touches that occur closest to conversion. The model is easy to calculate and can support myriad touches. The downside? It may undervalue lead generation and other top-of-funnel marketing activities.

Choosing a marketing attribution model.

Think of the marketing attribution models above as guidelines, not prescriptions. You can modify them to fit your team’s needs, using your own custom algorithms.

The best model for you will depend on how many touches you typically have before a conversion, and the way those touches are distributed across the sales funnel.

If your customers engage only a handful of times before converting, a simple, single-source model may work well for you. If you invest most heavily in end-of-funnel marketing activities, choose a model that allows you to measure multiple touches that occur late in the funnel.

Is there a recommended marketing attribution model?

Adobe’s main priority is to offer as many types of marketing attribution models as possible. We don’t push one type of model, because we want you to choose the types of attribution that are perfect for your marketing strategy. There is no marketing attribution model that provides every bit of information that you need. The types you choose will depend on each use case and what each user in your organization needs.

For instance, digital analysts and channel marketers are tasked with answering certain types of questions about marketing. Their use case would be using attribution to garner data that would answer those questions. Operations’ use case for attribution is determining how to best optimize media spend. B2B companies’ use case would be account-based attribution, because of their longer sales cycles.

Variables to consider when choosing an attribution model.

The key things to weigh up when selecting between marketing attribution models are:

• The sales cycles used
• Whether offline or online channels are dominant
• What software you’re using

The typical sales cycle in your company impacts the decision about which model to use because each buyer journey can be unique. Certain industries can have up to double the number of typical touchpoints as others, so if this sounds like your sector, a single-touch attribution model may be less than ideal.

If your sales cycle lasts longer than 90 days, then a first-touch attribution model may not pick up your top-of-funnel campaigns at all.

Firms with multiple touchpoints of equal weighting might find a linear attribution model is best for them, since this places weight equally on each. If budgets vary considerably between touch points — for instance, if you host conferences — then a model that recognizes the importance of decision-making may be better. This will often be the W-shaped attribution model.

How much offline-online interaction your business has will also make a difference. Those with more offline presence may need to rely on workarounds where there are tracking gaps, such as campaign-specific codes that could link an in-store purchase back to a TV commercial.

Software also has an impact. If you’re using Google Analytics for time-decay modeling, its seven-day half-life — in which a touchpoint that occurs seven days prior to a conversion receives half the credit of a same-day interaction — may not leave room to accommodate your needs.

Marketing attribution strategies.

It’s important to follow best practices to avoid common mistakes when developing your marketing attribution.

One helpful strategy is to use marketing software that can automate and systematize the process of determining which sales and marketing activity led to which revenue-generation events.

Marketing tools take the guesswork out of linking marketing channels to sales. They also make marketing attribution efforts scalable, ensuring that you can understand the most relevant touches whether you run a handful of campaigns or dozens.

Invest time in setting up measurement and reporting for marketing attribution data. Make sure that every marketing channel you have is linked to revenue generation in your reports, including:

• Online ads
• Webinars
• Conferences

You should also develop an omnichannel marketing attribution strategy that allows you to understand the impact of both online and offline marketing channels on a single customer journey.

Given that customers typically engage in both settings — they may view online ads, for example, while later talking to a salesperson at a trade show — you can't perform effective marketing attribution if you track exclusively online or exclusively offline touches.

In addition, be sure to track the influence of touches not only for new leads, but also for leads who are already in the sales funnel. SQLs are often still influenced by marketing efforts, and touches that occur later in the funnel can be critical for conversion.

How often should you check your marketing attribution model?

A great rule of thumb is to check your marketing attribution model quarterly — at a minimum — and make appropriate adjustments. This regular maintenance lets you account for new types of marketing choices or changes to your marketing strategy.

Is it difficult to use a marketing attribution model?

Marketing attribution models are marketer friendly. You do need some knowledge about data to make things easier, but for the most part, a marketing attribution model is designed to help marketers understand how to allocate their budgets. The industry is pushing to make attribution more and more user-friendly. Adobe has already taken big steps to make attribution easy to use and learn.

What are some challenges that come with marketing attribution?

A big challenge with marketing attribution is how easily it can be manipulated. Because people don’t want to lose their portions of the budget, they can run attribution models that purposely make their own work seem more impactful than it might be.

To combat this, it’s important to have a level of governance over marketing attribution modeling, to avoid different teams and departments fighting over control so that they don’t lose funding. You could assign this governance to a specific team and decide as a company what type of attribution models and lenses you will choose.

Get started with marketing attribution.

Marketing attribution is essential for ensuring that your marketing efforts pay off. Software tools that automate marketing attribution are critical for making the process reliable and efficient.

When you’re ready to improve the results you see from your marketing campaigns, Adobe Analytics is the better business intelligence tool you need. Adobe Analytics lets you mix, match, and analyze data from any digital point in the customer journey using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics.

It streamlines the process of collecting data for both single-touch and multi-touch marketing channels, and provides an easy drag-and-drop interface for:

• Building marketing attribution reports
• Defining different marketing channels based on templates
• Providing automated insights that link revenue to your marketing efforts

Request a demo or watch a video to learn how Adobe Analytics can help you with your marketing attribution.