I have worked in the field of marketing analytics for almost two decades. Lately, more and more programs are investing in more complicated and arcane measurement strategies.
Ultimately, this is a net positive for programs and the industry as a whole, but an incomplete understanding of analytics leads to ripe ground for deception.
Whether it’s auditing accounts managed by other agencies or listening to marketing partners give poor advice on joint customer calls, I’ve seen many cases where platforms, agencies and even in-house teams are taking advantage of their stats to alter the “performance” for their benefit.
What is the antidote?
Learn about cold measurement terms: their definitions, their importance, examples at work, and the ways they are commonly manipulated by bad actors.
In this article, I will focus on some of the most common terms.
What is attribution?
Before we get into the ways in which attribution can be manipulated, let’s define attribution itself:
Attribution is the process of assigning credit for a conversion to a specific marketing channel or touchpoint. It helps you understand which marketing channels drive the most conversions so you can allocate your marketing budget accordingly.
Now, that said, all internal teams, departments and agencies are highly incentivized to show as much impact as possible and some use sketchy techniques to increase the numbers.
Here are seven attribution models and related factors you need to know to stay on top.
1. Multi-touch attribution (MTA)
This attribution method assigns credit for a conversion to multiple marketing touchpoints. Common attribution models are last-touch, last-touch, linear, decay, and the ever-popular, data-driven, black box.
Why is it important?
Multi-touch attribution can help you understand the impact of all marketing channels that contribute to a conversion.
example
Let’s say a customer clicks on a Google ad on Monday and another on Tuesday and converts on the second ad. The first click will credit Monday’s ad, the last click will pick Tuesday’s ad, and other models will give values to each based on their logic.
How to play
This usually happens when you just cycle through different models until you see numbers that fit your story.
If you’re running upper funnel campaigns, switch to faster attribution. If you’re running retargeting, email, or brand search campaigns, move to later attribution models (including the still-all-too-common last-touch model).
note: Be skeptical of any black box models because they are ripe for subjectivity. For example, Google’s data-driven option in Google Analytics has every incentive to give Google more credit than other paid media channels. And remember that while MTA is much better than single tap attribution, it doesn’t account for increment.
Deeper: Google attribution model change: 3 solutions for advertisers
2. Marginal efficiency vs. average come back
Marginal efficiency is the additional revenue you generate for every dollar you spend on marketing. Virtually all media spending follows a log-shaped return curve.
Why is it important?
The point at which marginal cost equals marginal revenue minus operating cost is when conversions cease to be profitable. Knowing this number helps you be smarter about the CPAs you’re willing to accept.
example
If a program spends $100 for 10 conversions, you have an average CPA of $10, But each conversion costs more than the previous one.
This means that conversions start cheaper and are more expensive; so while the ratio doesn’t have to be exact, something like half of your conversions are under $10 and half are higher.
How to play
Back in the day, I heard a VP of Google claim, “Hey, if you’re making $50 per conversion, you can make money until your average CPA is over $50, so keep pushing to that point!”
However, since we know that half of that spend goes to conversions over $50, these more expensive conversions are grouped with cheaper ones.
3. Non-incremental conversion measure
Non-incremental conversions are conversions that would have occurred even if you had not run a marketing campaign.
Why is it important?
Identifying non-incremental conversions helps you accurately measure the impact of your marketing campaigns and allocate budget more effectively.
example
If you have a loyal customer base that buys your products regularly, some of the conversions you generate from your marketing campaigns would have happened even if you hadn’t run the campaigns.
The same is true for many direct response marketing campaigns for brands that have built positive awareness with upper funnel marketing: many customers would have bought without even seeing the direct response ads.
How to take advantage
We often see branded search campaigns and retargeting campaigns over-credited for conversions that would have occurred without users seeing or interacting with these ads.
Other scenarios that are over-credited include:
Facebook prospecting without visitor exclusion. Retargeting in general. Campaigns that include post-impression conversions in optimization goals. E-mail. Brand Search
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4. Halo effect
Also known as untracked conversions, this is the positive impact marketing has on sales that aren’t tracked.
Why is it important?
The halo effect can be a significant source of revenue for businesses. It is important to be aware of the halo effect and take advantage of it.
example
If you run a brand campaign that raises awareness of your brand, you may see an increase in sales even if you can’t track the specific conversions generated by the campaign. (Think of campaigns like highway billboards or TV commercials).
How it can affect search campaigns
Positive marketing without clear tracking can show up in other metrics, specifically increased brand search volume. The stronger your halo effect, the more important it is to understand non-incremental conversions, which can affect some budget decisions in search campaigns.
5. Marketing mix modeling (MMM)
This is a statistical technique used to measure the impact of marketing variables on sales. The good thing is that it doesn’t need any channel conversion or attributed campaign.
Why is it important?
MMM can help you understand which marketing variables have the biggest impact on sales so you can allocate your marketing budget accordingly. It relies on a significant amount of historical data to be effective.
example
MMM can be used to measure the impact of factors such as advertising spend, pricing and distribution on sales.
How to take advantage
MMM is a great tool for combining non-incremental/non-tracking and marginal performance, but it is not a perfect tool.
As you might expect, these models correctly recognize upper-funnel investment, but have difficulty distinguishing between channels if all spend increases equally.
Most acquisition budgets rise and fall with seasonality. It is important to re-run these analyzes after deliberately introducing and controlling for variance.
Deeper: Exploring Meridian, Google’s new open source marketing model
6. Click attribution versus post impression attribution
This is an attribution method that assigns credit for a conversion to the ad that was clicked or viewed by the customer.
Why is it important?
Click conversions are more meaningful than view conversions. Engagement means there was more impact on the user. There is some value in visualizations, especially in providing data density when it is hard to come by, but that is harder to measure.
example
If a customer sees a Facebook ad and then visits your website but doesn’t click on the ad, attribute a post-impression conversion if you’re using a post-impression attribution model. However, if you were using a click attribution model, you wouldn’t attribute the conversion to the Facebook ad because the customer didn’t click on it.
How to play
Giving post-impression conversions the same value as clicks is disingenuous. The worst thing is to have only one group of conversions that are a combination of clicks and views.
This can be more common than you think if you don’t know how to watch out for it. For example, YouTube performance doesn’t clearly differentiate between the two. It’s common for advertisers to use one-day lookback windows in Facebook campaigns.
7. Cookie window or retrospective window
This refers to specifying the time after a customer views or clicks on an ad during which you will attribute a subsequent conversion to that ad.
Why is it important?
The duration of the cookie window can significantly affect your performance. A longer cookie window will give you credit for more conversions, but there’s also a greater chance of other influences.
example
If you have a 30-day cookie window, conversions that occur within 30 days of a customer viewing or clicking on your ad will be attributed to that ad.
How to play
The longer the window, the more conversions are attributed, but the greater the chance that other factors may have influenced the conversion without being credited.
The truth about marketing attribution models and metrics
Even if some of these forms of measurement are simply misapplied by well-intentioned marketers, your brand budget is still what you’re getting.
If your campaign management includes any of the measurement initiatives or techniques listed above, or if you start hearing other terms that are new to you, make sure you’re aware of the actual definitions and use cases. optimal use before. make decisions based on the “data” presented to you.
Dig deeper: 5 outdated marketing KPIs to launch and what to reference
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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