very marketer on the planet; every person who’s job is to communicate value, brand messaging and increase sales using the web, dreams of knowing their customers better and being able to show the value that every step to purchase provides. (We also dream have nightmares about being fired, or clowns eating us – we marketers are weird people.) What’s this magical idea that can provide such value? Attribution. But Attribution is like trying to figure out how you woke up without pants on, in a Denny’s parking lot. Sadly, there’s no one size fits all product for attribution, it takes a company wide attribution strategy to take advantage of the insights and benefits it can provide.
ATTRIBUTION IS THE ACTION OF ASSIGNING VALUE TO EVENTS IN MARKETING CAMPAIGNS THAT LEAD TO A RESULT
In our case, it’s hopefully purchases and happy customers. As a science it also involves identifying value and weight against each channel, all with the end goal of finding the right mix for your marketing budget.
One of our favourite digital marketing meisters, Avinash Kaushik put together a masterful 9 step plan to build out your company’s digital attribution model. If you haven’t read the post this is modeled on, do yourself a favour and check it out. Avinash is brilliant, we’re big fans. Avinash if you ever read this, could you sign our copies of Web Analytics 2.0?
HOW TO USE THE ATTRIBUTION ELEVATOR
For Avinash it starts with a ladder. But let’s have some fun with that concept and build an elevator, because elevators may be humankind’s greatest invention prior to the internet. Except when you’ve really got to go to the washroom and some jerk presses all the buttons sending you on the slowest joyride ever.
First you’re going to need these 4 steps to even get to the elevator.
Step 1. Figure out what floor your company is on.
Step 2. Make sure your organization has fully maxed out the benefits of the current floor. Are your people, processes, culture and structures all fully aligned and executing perfectly?
Step 3. When your people, processes, culture and structure are aligned move up to the next floor. Don’t skip a floor. Don’t be that guy.
Step 4. Work out the technology and processes you’ll need to implement the next floor. Begin training your team to maximize the advantages of this phase. Then repeat steps 2-4.
Now, take a whimsical trip with us to the bottom of Attribution Strategy Tower and figure out how to show where your marketing dollars are being best spent. It might help with those dreams about being fired.
FURTHER READING
Download our Audience and Engagement White Paper – Our ebook will introduce you to audience engagement and attribution. We’ve divided it into three parts. Part 1 deals with audience engagement, what it is and why it matters, part 2 covers attribution, and part 3 brings it all together with some real-life examples.