2024 Marketing Attribution Trends to Monitor & Implement Into Next Year & Beyond

marketing stats

Staying up-to-date with the latest marketing attribution trends is essential for businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition and achieve their goals.

The way in which customers interact with brands and make purchasing decisions is constantly changing, making it crucial for businesses to adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.

After all, if you don’t know where your customers are coming from and what marketing efforts are driving conversions, then how can you make informed decisions about where to invest your resources?

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the key marketing attribution trends to monitor and the ones that you should be implementing into your strategies in the coming year and beyond.

In this Article:

unifida data platform
We’ve noted 5 of the most important marketing attribution trends that are shaping the landscape and impacting businesses today.

We use the term ‘trend’ loosely – some of these have been around for a while but are growing in importance and adoption. Others are emerging as innovative solutions to address the ever-changing needs of businesses.

Trend 1: Omni-Touch Attribution is Here to Stay

Gone are the days of relying solely on last-click attribution to determine the success of marketing campaigns (we’re looking at you, Google Analytics).

With the rise of multi-channel and cross-device interactions, it’s become evident that a more holistic approach is needed to accurately attribute success and determine the true impact of each touchpoint on a conversion.

Enter omni-touch attribution.

This model takes into account all the direct channel touchpoints across the customer journey, assigns appropriate value based on its impact and helps businesses make data-driven decisions about where to allocate their marketing budget.

We don’t need to tell you that customer journeys vary greatly from industry to industry, business to business, and even customer to customer. This is where omni-touch attribution truly shines, as it can be customised to fit the unique needs of each business.

At UniFida, we combine online and offline data to provide a complete view of the customer journey and help businesses make the most informed decisions about their marketing efforts.

Our mutli-touch attribution is integrated into our Customer Data Platform, where you have access to insights and analytics in real-time, broken down by channel, segment, and more.

Unlike GA4, with its limited attribution capabilities, our platform allows for customised attribution models and full flexibility in determining what success looks like for your business.

Bespoke attribution models are the way of the future, and it’s time for businesses to embrace this trend if they want to stay competitive.

Trend 2: The Rise of Machine Learning in Attribution

machine learning

As the amount of data available to businesses continues to grow, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manually analyse and make sense of it all.

Data science and machine learning-powered solutions are stepping in to bridge this gap, providing businesses with the tools to make sense of vast amounts of data and gain valuable insights.

For example, we also develop models that predict your customer’s behaviour, build customer and market segmentations, provide accurate customer profiling, and give you the ability to target your most valuable customers.

The ever-growing data sets and the complexity of customer behaviour make it nearly impossible for manual analysis to keep up. With machine learning, we are able to process this data at a much faster rate, providing businesses with real-time insights that can be leveraged in their marketing strategies.

Not only that but being able to predict customer behaviour can help businesses be more proactive in their marketing efforts, rather than simply reacting to past data.

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Trend 3: The Demand for Influencer Attribution

Influencer marketing has exploded in popularity in recent years, with businesses increasingly turning to influencers to reach and engage their target audience.

It is estimated that influencer marketing is expected to be worth $24 billion by the end of 2024.

It’s estimated there are a staggering 64 million Instagram influencer accounts, and a rapidly growing 1.3 million TikTok Creators. And that’s just looking at two social platforms.

Influencer marketing is hugely powerful as more and more customers want to ‘connect’ with brands in a different, more human way. It’s not just about showing products anymore – it’s about building trust and authentic relationships.

But with this rise in popularity comes the need for accurate and effective influencer attribution. As businesses invest more in this type of marketing, they want to know the return on their investment and which influencers are driving the most conversions.

To meet this demand, new solutions are emerging that provide detailed insights into influencer impact and ROI.

Again, we can round this back nicely to the importance of omni-channel and cross-device attribution. With more influencer collaborations taking place on multiple platforms, it’s essential to have a complete view of the customer journey to accurately attribute success.

Trend 4: Near Real-Time (& Shareable) Attribution for Timely Decision Making

marketing stats

The pace of business is only getting faster, and the need for near real-time insights and decision-making is crucial. This applies to marketing attribution as well.

However, with near real-time attribution, businesses can access up-to-date information and make decisions that have an immediate impact.

Near real-time attribution is especially valuable for businesses that rely on time-sensitive campaigns, such as flash sales or limited promotions. With the ability to track and attribute success in near real-time, businesses can make quick adjustments to their campaigns and maximise their ROI.

At UniFida, we are committed to providing our clients with near real-time insights through our Customer Data Platform.

As standard, we look back 90 days before each sale or conversion to see how each touchpoint has contributed, providing a detailed and accurate view of the customer journey in near real-time.

Many of our clients ask us to provide even more granular data, such as looking at how different customer groups are responding to different media channels.

Our CDP collates data from multiple sources, including offline and online interactions, to provide a complete picture of each customer’s journey in near real-time that the entire marketing team can use. This allows for quick and efficient decision-making, helping businesses stay agile in today’s fast-paced market.

Trend 5: The Need for Data Privacy Compliance

With the rise of data breaches and increased concern over privacy, data protection is becoming an increasingly important topic for businesses to address.

As more regulations and laws are implemented, such as GDPR, businesses must ensure they are compliant with data privacy regulations in all aspects of their marketing efforts.

This includes marketing attribution. With the use of personal data and tracking technologies, businesses need to be transparent about how they collect and use this information for attribution purposes.

We take data privacy seriously and our CPD is fully compliant with major regulations.

Our platform allows for full transparency and control over customer data, ensuring that businesses stay on the right side of the law while still making informed decisions based on accurate attribution.

How Can Businesses Adapt to These Trends?

how can businesses adapt

It’s clear that marketing attribution is evolving, and businesses need to adapt their strategies accordingly.

For many organisations, the time, budget, and resources simply aren’t readily available or easily accessible to implement these trends on their own. That’s where partnering with a data-driven solution like UniFida can make all the difference.

Our Customer Data Platform, powered by our MTA (multi-touch attribution), provides businesses with all the tools they need to stay ahead of the curve and achieve success in today’s complex marketing landscape.

From bespoke attribution models to near real-time insights and compliance with data privacy regulations, we offer a comprehensive solution that helps businesses make the most of their marketing efforts.

We take it one step further by calculating the month-by-month ROMI for each channel in your marketing stack, providing a clear understanding of which channels are driving the most value for your business, allowing for targeted investments and maximising ROI.

Don’t get left behind in the ever-changing world of marketing attribution. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business succeed in 2024 and beyond.

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Summary: The Future is Data-Driven

If there’s one thing you take away from this article, it’s that the future of marketing attribution is data-driven – and this isn’t really new information.

As customer behaviour continues to evolve and become more complex, businesses need to rely on data and insights to stay competitive and achieve their goals.

By staying up-to-date with the latest trends in marketing attribution and partnering with a vendor like us, businesses can make informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve.

So don’t wait – start implementing these trends in your marketing strategies today and set yourself up for success in the years to come.

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FAQs

What is Predictive Marketing Attribution?

Predictive marketing attribution uses data and machine-learning to predict customer behaviour, build segmentations, and provide insights for businesses looking to make informed decisions about their marketing strategies.

What is Marketing Attribution Analysis?

Marketing attribution analysis involves reviewing and analysing the effectiveness of different marketing touchpoints in driving conversions. This can help businesses understand which channels and campaigns are most successful and inform future decisions.

What is Attribution Using ML?

Attribution using ML refers to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in determining the impact of marketing touchpoints on customer conversions. This can help businesses make more accurate and timely decisions about their marketing efforts, rather than relying on manual analysis of data, which is virtually impossible to keep up with in today’s fast-paced business world.

Can Marketing Attribution Be Used for B2B?

In fact, with longer and more complex customer journeys, accurate attribution is crucial for B2B businesses to understand the impact of their marketing efforts and make informed decisions about where to allocate their budget.

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

Marketing Attribution Services – Pricing & ROI

marketing roi

The cost of a marketing attribution service doesn’t matter that much!

This might be a bold statement to make but let us explain why.

If you’re looking to vendors to provide a marketing attribution service, you’re likely aware of the benefits it can bring to your business.

In short, marketing attribution is the process of identifying and analysing the various marketing investment touchpoints that lead to a conversion or sale. This information is crucial for understanding which marketing efforts are driving results and where to allocate resources in the future.

As with any service, there is a cost involved. However, the insights you gain from a marketing attribution service can far outweigh the initial investment.

Let’s break it down further (and we’ll give an idea of just how much you should expect to pay for a marketing attribution service).

Want to deep-dive into the world of marketing attribution? Download our eBook for FREE today!

Factors That Determine Marketing Attribution Pricing

Example individual media customer journeys

Unsurprisingly, we’re not going to be able to give you a definitive cost for a marketing attribution service. Not only will your choice of vendor be a factor, but there are also several other factors that can affect the pricing.

These include:

The Number of Channels

Marketing attribution looks at all of the different channels involved in a customer’s journey. This could include social media, email marketing, paid ads, direct mail, door drops, and more.

The more channels included in your attribution analysis, the higher the cost can be, as there’s more data to gather and analyse.

The Complexity of Channels

Closely related to the number of channels is the nature and complexity of said channels.

For example…

A business that only utilises direct digital (or online) channels will likely have a simpler attribution process compared to a business that also uses indirect offline channels, such as print ads or TV commercials.

For more complex channels, like these indirect offline channels, a MMM (Marketing Mix Modelling) approach or Econometrics is required to determine attribution to these. This is because there are no automatic tracking tools available for indirect channels, so the data-gathering process and analysis can be more time-consuming and costly.

By comparison, simpler or all direct channels may only require a Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) approach.

MTA alone doesn’t consider the effects of things like brand awareness-driven campaigns. The most effective marketing attribution services are powered by a hybrid approach that analyses both MTA and MMM together.

Learn More About Our Bespoke Attribution & CDP

The Level of Customisation

data science

The more customised the service, the higher the cost can be. Some marketing attribution platform providers offer pre-designed packages, while others provide a fully bespoke platform supported by in-house data experts – like us here at UniFida.

While it’s true that the cost of a pre-designed package may look more attractive, the value you gain from customisation can be significant.

By tailoring the service to your business’s specific needs and goals, you increase the accuracy of the insights gained and can make more informed decisions.

The Marketing Budget

It’s important to consider your marketing budget when determining the cost of a marketing attribution service.

While it may seem counterintuitive to spend money on attribution analysis when you’re trying to manage costs, the insights gained can actually help you save money and drive more value from your marketing efforts.

Marketing attribution can help you identify which channels and campaigns are most effective, allowing you to focus your budget on those areas, and generate a better ROI.

Reducing spending on weaker-performing marketing efforts and investing more in those that are driving results can lead to significant savings in the long run.

We discuss all this in a little more detail in our eBook, but we argue that the costs of attribution can be viewed as a form of investment rather than written off as expenses. The long-term value gained from accurate attribution insights can seriously benefit the development of your brand, so is this really a cost at all, or an investment in your business’s future?

Download our eBook Here

The Cost of a Marketing Attribution

marketing costs

We know a lot of businesses, such as yours, will be searching for a figure on the cost of marketing attribution services, so we’ve done some of our own research into typical charges.

We’ve broken it down into simple and complex depending on the marketing budget you have.

Cost of Marketing Attribution as % of Marketing Budget
Complex marketing requiring MMM & MTA 2.5% – 5.0% 1.0%
Simple marketing requiring MTA only 1.0% – 2.5% 0.5%
Low budget < £1m High budget > £10m

Table taken from our eBook ‘Marketing Attribution: The Key to Proving the True Value of Marketing’

It’s worth noting that we’d like you to take this as an estimate, as we can’t speak for every marketing attribution provider out there, and the factors that we’ve discussed above can affect the cost.

Are Marketing Attribution Services Worth the Cost?

It’s a cliche, but the benefits gained from a marketing attribution service can many times outweigh the costs.

Not only can it help you make better-informed decisions and maximise ROMI, but it can also provide a better understanding of your customers and their journeys, leading to an improved customer experience.

After all, the more you invest in understanding what your customers respond to at a granular level, the more you can effectively cater to their needs and wants by providing personalised and targeted marketing efforts. This can lead to increased loyalty, retention, and ultimately, more revenue.

The Benefits of Using Marketing Attribution

  • Improved data-driven budget allocation for the marketing team
  • Increased ROMI
  • Better understanding of customers and their journey
  • Enhanced customer experience
  • Less time and resources spent on ineffective marketing efforts
  • Increased customer loyalty, retention, and revenue
  • Less time spent on manual data analysis and reporting

What Marketing ROI Can I Expect from Attribution?

marketing roi

The return on marketing investment (ROMI) can vary depending on the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and the accuracy of your attribution analysis.

It also depends on your budget and how much you’re willing to invest in marketing attribution. As we mentioned earlier, this investment can lead to long-term value for your business.

An example of expected ROMI…

Marketing budget per annum: £10 million

Expected marketing attribution costs for complex operations: £100,000

Expected ROMI: Above x 10

The Bottom Line: The Cost of Marketing Attribution Should Not Be a Barrier

As we said at the start of this piece, the cost of a marketing attribution service shouldn’t be your main concern. The insights and value gained far outweigh any initial investment.

Of course, we understand that budget constraints are a reality for businesses, but we encourage you to think of marketing attribution as a long-term investment in your business’s success. We believe the benefits speak for themselves, and we hope this piece has given you a better understanding of the costs involved and the potential return on that investment.

If you want to learn more about marketing attribution, download our eBook for free today.

Or, you can get in touch directly with a member of our team to discuss how we can support your business with our bespoke and sophisticated marketing attribution services.

Contact Our Team Today

Disclaimer: The information provided in this document is based on our knowledge and experience. The costs and ROI figures provided are estimates and may vary depending on individual circumstances.

FAQs

Is it Better to Have a High or Low Short-Term ROMI?

A high immediate ROMI indicates that your marketing efforts are generating a positive return on investment, which is obviously desirable. However, this doesn’t mean you should only focus on achieving a high ROMI.

The key is to find the balance between investing in performance short-term marketing efforts that deliver results, while also considering the long-term impact on your business’s brand.

How Much Should You Spend on Marketing Attribution?

As we’ve discussed in this piece, there are several factors that can affect the cost of a marketing attribution service. It ultimately depends on your specific business needs and budget.

We recommend speaking with a trusted vendor to discuss your options and find the right solution for your business. You can email us or give us a call to see how we can help.

What If I Have a Limited Budget for Marketing Attribution?

Even with a limited budget, you may still benefit from marketing attribution. However, the number and complexities of your marketing channels will ultimately determine the cost and scope of your attribution analysis, so to reduce costs you may need to reduce scope.

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

Learn Multi-Touch Marketing Attribution Theory & Models In 10 Minutes

There are numerous types of marketing attribution theories, methods, and frameworks that are used to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Each uses a different approach and set of principles to understand the customer journey, track interactions, and assign credit for conversions – but what exactly are marketing attribution models, and how do they work?

While they all have an end goal of identifying the most effective marketing channels and campaigns (which many of us are familiar with), the actual theories behind them may not be as well known.

By understanding these theories, marketers can better evaluate and improve their strategies to drive successful campaigns. And some of these frameworks will be more valuable to your business than others.

We’re going to take you through each of the different multi-touch marketing attribution theories and give you a rundown of their principles so that you can better understand how they work and how to use them.

The Key Points…

  • Marketing theories, such as marketing attribution frameworks, are used to explain how different marketing activities influence customer behaviour and contribute to conversions across the customer journey.
  • In attribution, theories on marketing determine how credit is assigned to individual touchpoints, such as first-touch, last-touch, linear, and multi-touch models.
  • Different marketing theories produce very different performance insights, which can significantly impact budget allocation and strategic decision-making.
  • Understanding marketing theory helps businesses identify the strengths and limitations of traditional marketing attribution models that focus only on digital or final interactions.
  • Data-driven and multi-touch marketing theories provide a more accurate view of performance by accounting for every meaningful customer interaction.

 

What is the Multi-Touch Marketing Attribution Model?

Just to cover the basics, let’s start with what the marketing attribution model actually is.

In simple terms, it is a framework used to determine how much ‘credit’ each marketing touchpoint receives for a sale or any other conversion you are tracking.

For example, a customer may come across an ad on social media for an electric bicycle, then see a banner ad for the same product on a website, and eventually make their purchase by directly visiting the company’s website.

In this scenario, each of these touchpoints played a role in the customer’s decision to make a purchase and can be credited for it.

Marketing attribution models help businesses understand which channels and campaigns are most effective at driving conversions and, ultimately, revenue.

Why is it Important for Marketers to Understand Marketing Attribution Theories?

Having a clear understanding of attribution theory can greatly benefit marketers in several ways:

  • It helps identify the best channels and campaigns to invest in, resulting in more efficient use of marketing budgets.
  • It provides a better understanding of the customer journey, allowing for targeting and personalisation efforts to be tailored accordingly.
  • It allows for accurate measurement and evaluation of marketing efforts, leading to more informed decisions on future strategies.
  • It can assist in identifying any gaps or limitations within current attribution methods and lead to improvements.

If a business isn’t taking note or deep-diving into their marketing attribution, it could be missing out on valuable insights and opportunities for growth.

Resources are limited, and understanding attribution theory can help ensure you are making the most of your investment.

Different Types of Theories on Marketing Attribution

The way in which these customer journey touchpoints are credited depends on the type of marketing attribution theory used in the model. Depending on the theory, each touchpoint will be given a different weight or value in the customer’s path to conversion.

Let’s explore some of the most commonly used marketing attribution theories:

Marketing Attribution ModelExplanation of Model
Time-Decay AttributionGives credit to the touchpoints closest to the conversion, with the most recent touchpoints receiving a higher value.
First-Touch AttributionAttributes all credit for a conversion to the first touchpoint in the customer journey.
Last-Touch AttributionAttributes all credit for a conversion to the last touchpoint in the customer journey.
Linear AttributionGives equal credit to all touchpoints along the customer journey.
Multi-Touch AttributionAssigns weight to every touchpoint in the customer journey based on its value contribution to the conversion.

1) Time Decay Attribution

This theory gives credit to the touchpoints closest to the conversion, with the most recent touchpoints receiving a higher value. In this model, the first touchpoint receives less credit than the last touchpoint before conversion.

Example: In the electric bicycle scenario mentioned earlier, the banner ad on the website would receive more credit than the social media ad as it was closer to the conversion (i.e., the purchase).

Essentially, this theory assumes that the closer a touchpoint is to the conversion, the more influential it is in making the sale, so it is considered to be more valuable.

The UniFida Marketing Attribution model uses machine learning to assign weights to each touchpoint using the time-decay theory, alongside crediting events that keep customers interested before the sale closes.

2) First-Touch Attribution

This model attributes all credit for a conversion to the first touchpoint in the customer journey. It assumes that the initial contact with a brand has the most significant impact on a potential customer’s decision.

Example: In our electric bicycle scenario, social media would receive all the credit for the sale.

This theory may be useful for businesses looking to increase brand awareness and reach new customers, as it emphasises the importance of the initial touchpoint.

Of course, the downside of using this model is that it doesn’t take into account any other touchpoints that may have also influenced the conversion. The display ad could have been the deciding factor in making the sale, but it would not receive any credit under this theory.

3) Last-Touch Attribution

As the flip side to FTA, Last-Touch Attribution attributes all credit for a conversion to the last touchpoint in the customer journey.

Example: In our electric bicycle scenario, the direct visit to the company’s website would receive all the credit for the sale.

This model is useful for businesses looking to focus on the final actions that lead to conversions.

However, it also ignores any other touchpoints that may have contributed to the customer’s decision.

Using our example again, you could argue that, were it not for the social media and display ad, the customer may never have been aware of the product in the first place.

4) Linear Attribution

This model gives equal credit to all touchpoints along the customer journey. It assumes that each interaction with a brand holds equal weight in influencing a potential customer’s decision.

Example: In our electric bicycle scenario, the social media ad, website ad, and direct visit to the company’s website would each receive 33.3% credit for the sale.

This theory may be beneficial for businesses that want to take a holistic approach to attribution and give value to all touchpoints in the customer journey.

The problem with this model is that it doesn’t consider the individual impact of each touchpoint.

Some touchpoints may have a more significant influence on conversions than others, so giving equal credit may not accurately reflect their actual contribution, either over-reporting or under-reporting their impact.

5) Multi-Touch (or Data-Driven) Attribution

As the name suggests, this model is tailored to a business’s specific needs and takes into account their unique customer journey and touchpoints. It uses machine-learning to assign weights to each touchpoint (multi-touchpoints), taking into account their individual impact on conversions.

Example: In our electric bicycle scenario, the custom attribution model may consider factors such as the customer’s past interactions with the brand and their behaviour on the website before making a purchase.

This model offers a more accurate and comprehensive view of marketing performance, taking into account all relevant touchpoints and their impact on conversions.

While it requires a large amount of data and analysis, it is the most effective way to understand a business’s specific customer journey and make informed decisions on marketing strategies.

Other theories include: Full-Path Attribution, W-Shaped Attribution, and U-Shaped Attribution.

What is the Best Marketing Attribution Model?

We firmly believe that a multi-touch attribution model is the most effective for businesses looking to gain a comprehensive understanding of their marketing performance.

Many of the other frameworks are limiting in their approach, either overestimating or underestimating the impact of specific touchpoints. Some also don’t consider the full customer journey, which can result in missed opportunities for improvement.

Ultimately, the best marketing attribution model will be unique to each business and their specific goals. But if you want to gain the deepest and most accurate insights into your marketing performance, an MTA model is the way to go.

What is Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) – & How Does it Relate to Attribution?

With the goal to hone in on the ROI of marketing efforts, the MMM approach takes into account various offline as well as online marketing channels and external factors to determine their individual contribution to sales or conversions.

The key difference between MMM and other attribution methods is that it considers both online and offline touchpoints, whereas traditional attribution models often focus solely on digital (or direct) touchpoints.

Just think about the electric bicycle example – factors such as weather, competitor activity and demand levels for electric bicycles could all impact sales. MMM takes these into account to provide a more accurate view of marketing ROI.

Combining MTA & MMM

While MMM provides valuable insights into the overall impact of marketing efforts, it doesn’t provide a granular view of individual touchpoints’ performance. By combining MTA and MMM, businesses can gain both a macro and micro perspective on their marketing strategy.

With MTA providing an in-depth analysis of each touchpoint’s contribution and MMM giving a broader view of overall performance, together, they provide a more holistic understanding of marketing effectiveness.

Here at UniFida, we use MTA and Econometrics (or MMM) to provide a complete view of your marketing performance, giving you the insights and tools you need to drive successful campaigns and maximise ROMI.

Our approach combines data analysis, machine learning, and our proprietary algorithms to deliver a comprehensive view of your customer journey and attribution.

Learn More About Our Marketing Attribution Solution

Summary: Understand Marketing Attribution to Understand Your Customers

Marketing attribution is a crucial concept for businesses looking to understand their customer’s journeys and the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Becoming knowledgeable in the different attribution theories and finding the right model for your business can provide valuable insights into how to drive conversions and increase ROI.

If you are looking to take your marketing attribution efforts to the next level, UniFida can help. We’ll work with you to create a bespoke attribution solution, using our combination of MTA, Econometrics (MMM), and our proprietary algorithms.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you gain a deeper understanding of your customers and optimise your marketing strategies for success.

Enquire Today for More on How UniFida Can Help

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

Maximising business value from marketing expenditure – should you view it like a waterfall?

waterfall

How easy is it to accurately evaluate the real business value of marketing expenditure?
And how important is it to recognise the scale of the gap between different approaches to marketing attribution?

Value waterfall by channel chart

It’s something we at UniFida have been thinking about a lot, and discussing with our clients. This ‘Value Waterfall by Channel’ chart we put together for one of our clients helps answer these questions.

At the top of the Waterfall is the view taken by Last Click or single source exponents who expect us to believe that because a certain event took place in a customer journey before a sale was made, the total value of the sale was contingent on that particular event.

For online activities, Last Click attribution is still used by default in Google Analytics and is often employed by Affiliates. For offline activity, the equivalent of Last Click reporting is single source coding, such as when a call centre allocates a single source code to a sale, e.g. a Press code, or in direct mail where a sale is counted as a response because it happened so many days after the customer was mailed.

Increasingly inaccurate

Last Click and single source coding are becoming increasingly inaccurate because customer journeys to a sale are more complex and involve an increasing number of marketing touchpoints.

The next layer down in the Waterfall, and closer to the actual water level, is multi-touch attribution, or MTA. This approach takes into account all the steps in the customer journey, not just the last, and uses a scoring system to attribute value to each of the steps according to the role they played in the sales funnel.

Different MTA platforms use different algorithms to attribute value cross the steps, but the result is much closer to reality than Last Click.

Although excellent in theory, MTA ignores the fact that indirect channels such as TV, OOH and Press can be very important contributors to brand building and supporting a purchase decision. And many other factors will also be influential, such as a person’s natural purchase cycle, the time of year, their level of disposable income, the weather, and so on.

The role of econometrics

Getting closer to reality, and much closer to the actual water level, is the approach to marketing attribution that allows these other factors to be considered. This is best done by combining econometrics (MMM) with MTA.

The econometrics model can be used to scale back the value contributed by the direct channels, as reported by MTA, to a lower level. Econometrics describes the incremental impact of marketing in the context of how all factors are influencing purchasing decisions, combining all marketing channels’ impact with the influence of all external factors. In reality this will usually involve cutting back the reported impact of marketing by a significant fraction.

However, a final step needs to be introduced to get right down to the actual financial benefit contributed by marketing, and hence to the true water level, which is to allow for the cost of sale. Many marketing reports show the impact of marketing on sales rather than on the correct business metric, which is its impact on value contributed. The cost of sales, or cost of goods as it is often called in retail, will be what the company has to pay to create the product that it’s selling.

Live example

Our Waterfall chart is a summary of a recent live attribution modelling exercise we conducted for a large retailer, who combine online sales with bricks and mortar retailing. It shows a massive difference between the value reported by Last Click and the actual impact of marketing on the bottom line.

It’s interesting to note that for Google Pay per Click the indexed value was reduced when MTA is introduced compared to Last Click, whereas for Direct Mail the value increases. This is explained by the fact that Pay per Click is much more likely to feature in the customer’s journey near the end of the sales funnel, whereas Direct Mail is more likely to feature at the start of the funnel where it is very good at initiating a sale.

Our conclusion is simple. If you want to truthfully report the business value of marketing expenditure, it is absolutely essential to avoid false metrics such as Last Click or single source tracking.

It is important to get close to the bottom of the waterfall where all channels, plus external factors and the cost of sale, are factored into your reporting metrics. To do this properly you may have to combine both MTA and econometrics!

For more information read about UniFida’s Marketing Attribution >

Email [email protected] or call +44 203 9606472.

 

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

What is Sustainability in Marketing & How Do You Calculate Your Company’s Carbon Footprint?

Sustainability in marketing is far from a buzz topic. For some, it forms a core part of their business practices, while for others, it is a moral obligation. 

Regardless of how companies perceive sustainability in marketing, one thing remains true: it is a crucial aspect of any business that aims to thrive in the long term.

But what exactly does sustainability in marketing mean? And how can you even know your company’s carbon footprint?

Within our marketing bubble, we often tend to forget that our actions have a wider impact on the environment. And we don’t just mean the materials we use for promotional materials or the resources we consume in our offices.

Our overall business operations, including the creation and delivery of marketing campaigns, have a direct impact on the environment. Sending emails, posting on social media, and attending events all contribute to our company’s carbon footprint.

Let’s delve a little deeper into this topic and look at the ways in which you can gauge the sustainability of your marketing efforts and measure your company’s marketing carbon footprint.

Measure and track your marketing carbon footprint with our online CO2 Counter Tool. We can provide you with a personalised dashboard to accurately measure and track the carbon emissions from your marketing activities.

With this information, you can make informed decisions on how to reduce your environmental impact and implement sustainable practices.

What is Sustainability in Marketing?

sustainability in marketing

In simple terms, sustainability in marketing refers to the practice of incorporating environmentally and socially responsible practices into all aspects of a company’s marketing efforts.

This includes…

  • Considering the environmental impact of materials used for promotional materials
  • Reducing energy consumption when creating and delivering campaigns
  • Promoting sustainable products or services.

It’s certainly not limited to these examples, but they provide a good starting point for understanding where the scope of marketing sustainability lies.

A short email sent and received on your phone can produce 0.2g of CO2 emissions. If you think about how many emails you receive in a day, that number can quickly add up.

Now imagine the impact of thousands or even millions of marketing emails being sent out by a company every day.

When Mike Berners-Lee’s groundbreaking book, “How Bad Are Bananas? – The Carbon Footprint of Everything” was first published in 2009, many of us were seeing the phrase ‘carbon footprint’ for the first time.

Today, we know virtually everything we do in our lives has a measurable carbon impact.

And given that the UK’s CO2 emissions per head are at the higher end of the global scale, UK marketers must consider – alongside personal activities such as home heating and air travel – the environmental impact of their campaigns.

Read More: Why Email & Digital Activity is Not Always the Greener Option

How to Measure & Assess the Carbon Footprint of a Company

how to measure the carbon emissions of your company

There are basically two ways of assessing your marketing campaign’s environmental impact:

  1. Measure the uplift in overall CO2 caused by advertising, which takes into account the increased number of goods and services we buy, or
  2. Calculate just the actual carbon released by the campaigns themselves.

The broader measure, called ‘advertised emissions’, is used by Purpose Disruptors, whose mission is to “catalyse the industry’s climate transition to align with the 1.5 degrees IPCC global warming target”.

They concluded that, in 2022, UK marketers were responsible for 208m tonnes of additional CO2.

We respect (but also have some concerns about) this measurement method as it assumes that the impact of advertising is all incremental, whereas in fact a great deal of it may just result in business being transferred from suppliers A to B.

That’s why we recommend calculating the actual carbon emissions of your marketing campaigns using a tool like our CO2 Counter Tool.

Using a CO2 Counter Tool for Accurate Campaign Measurement

A CO2 Counter like ours accurately measures the actual CO2 emitted by your marketing campaigns themselves, evaluating every possible channel, including:

Our platform measures the scale of each campaign, the materials it uses, and the impact of both the distribution and consumption of advertising. This produces a smaller, but still extremely important, measure – one that marketers have much more power to control.

You can get access to our carbon emissions tracking tool by contacting us below:

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Why is It Important to Evaluate Your Company’s Carbon Footprint?

evaluate your companys carbon emissions

Measuring and tracking your company’s marketing carbon footprint doesn’t just give you a nice moral high ground. It also has tangible business benefits, including:

  • Cost savings: By reducing your carbon emissions, you can save on energy and resources, leading to potential cost savings for your company.
  • Customer trust & brand loyalty: Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of businesses they support. By implementing sustainable practices and being transparent about your carbon footprint, you can gain the trust and loyalty of environmentally-conscious customers.
  • Reputation management: In today’s digital age, any negative publicity related to a company’s environmental impact can quickly spread online. By actively working towards green marketing and reducing your carbon footprint, you can proactively manage your reputation and avoid potential backlash.
  • Future-proofing: As governments and consumers push for more sustainable practices, companies that are ahead of the game in terms of environmental responsibility will be better positioned to adapt and thrive in a changing market.

How to Implement Sustainable Marketing in Your Company

So, with all of those benefits in mind, how can you start incorporating sustainable practices into your marketing efforts? This will, of course, vary from business to business, depending on size, industry, and budget. But here are some general recommendations and steps you can take…

Use a CO2 Counter Tool

co2 counter for marketing

The first step is to recognise how much CO2 your marketing is causing. If you’re in the planning stages of a campaign, say a spring sale, for example, you can use a CO2 Counter Tool to assess how much CO2 emission it will produce in the end.

You can look at each channel within your campaign, like emails or social media posts, and think about where changes could be made to reduce the overall carbon footprint.

For many businesses, the struggle in promoting sustainability comes from not knowing where changes can be made, and a CO2 Counter Tool solves that problem.

Get Access to Our CO2 Counter

Consider Alternative Campaigns & Strategies

As part of your assessment, consider if there are alternative, more sustainable marketing campaigns that could be just as effective as your current plans but with less environmental impact.

For example, instead of sending out thousands of printed newsletters promoting a sale, could you promote it through email and social media instead? Could you create a more targeted email campaign instead of a blanket marketing approach?

Of course, you need to consider your target audience and what channels would be most effective for reaching them, but it’s worth considering the environmental impact of each option.

Partner with Sustainable Suppliers

partnering with sustainable suppliers

Another way to reduce your company’s carbon footprint is by partnering with suppliers who prioritise sustainability.

This could include using eco-friendly materials for printing and packaging, choosing green energy providers, or working with companies with their own sustainable practices.

We collaborated with Net Zero Media, an Australia-based consultancy, to create our CO2 Counter Tool. They have a strong focus on sustainability and are committed to helping companies reduce their carbon footprint.

By choosing sustainable suppliers, you can not only reduce your own impact but also support and promote businesses that are working towards a greener future.

Be wise about who you choose as suppliers, as your association with them can impact your brand’s image.

Promote Sustainability in Your Messaging

You don’t have to shout from the rooftops about your sustainability efforts, but incorporating it into your digital marketing messaging can have a positive impact.

You could create a dedicated landing page on your website that details the measures your company is taking to reduce its carbon footprint or include a small blurb in your email signatures.

Dotting a few social media posts here and there that highlight your sustainability messages can also go a long way in promoting your company’s commitment to the environment.

This should also extend to your internal marketing and communications – not just external-facing efforts.

Your employees, colleagues, and stakeholders are all key cogs in the business wheel, and their buy-in and support of sustainable practices can significantly impact your company’s overall carbon footprint.

How AI is Affecting Green Marketing

how AI is affecting marketing

In the 2020 revised edition of his book,‘How Bad Are Bananas’, Berners-Lee updates all the figures (including from data centres) and introduces areas that are now part of today’s online marketing life, from Twitter (now X) to the Cloud.

With even more marketing technology advances, many fuelled by AI, coming down the track, the question all marketers need to be asking today is: are we ready to accurately measure and offset the environmental impact of all our marketing campaigns?

AI is increasingly being used in marketing to optimise campaigns, personalise content, and analyse consumer data. However, with all this data and automation comes a significant increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Many AI models require large amounts of computing power, which ultimately results in more electricity usage. And with the rise of smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), there will be an even greater demand for energy and resources to power these technologies.

However, AI can also be used for the greater good to promote sustainability. For example, it can help companies predict customer behaviour and tailor marketing campaigns accordingly, reducing the overall waste of resources.

It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, but the key is to use AI responsibly and consciously consider its environmental impact when implementing it into your marketing strategies.

Conclusion: Thinking More Actively About Sustainability in Marketing

We’re seeing many more organisations being proactive in their efforts to become more environmentally conscious and sustainable.

If you want to measure your company’s marketing carbon footprint and explore ways to offset it, our CO2 Counter Tool is available for use. You can read more about our carbon counter tool or get in touch to request your personalised report.

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FAQs

What is an Example of Sustainable Marketing?

An example of sustainable marketing could be a company promoting their use of eco-friendly materials in their products or packaging, or highlighting their efforts to reduce carbon emissions in their supply chain.

How Do Companies Track Their Carbon Footprint?

A CO2 tracker or measurement tool can be used to track a company’s carbon footprint by assessing the emissions produced from various activities, such as manufacturing, transportation, and marketing campaigns. Companies can also work with consultants or experts in sustainability to accurately measure their carbon footprint.

Our CO2 Counter Tool is effective at measuring the carbon emissions produced by the channels within a campaign and the overall campaign itself.

What is the Formula to Calculate Carbon Footprint?

The formula for calculating carbon footprint varies depending on the specific activity or aspect being measured. However, a basic formula for determining carbon footprint is:

  • Total amount of greenhouse gas emissions (in tons) = Activity data (in units) x Emission factor (in tons per unit of activity)

There are also online calculators and tools available to help businesses accurately measure their carbon footprint. Our CO2 Counter Tool uses a similar formula, but with specific metrics for every variety of marketing campaign.

How Does AI Contribute to Sustainable Marketing?

AI can contribute to sustainable marketing by helping companies optimise campaigns, personalise content, and analyse consumer data more efficiently.

However, it’s important for companies to use AI responsibly and consider its environmental impact when implementing it into their marketing strategies.

Should you be investing in marketing measurement?

With UK marketing spend trending above £120bn (the figure for 2021 according to Marketing Week), the question is: should you be investing in marketing measurement? The answer for most marketers is ‘probably’, and for anyone spending serious amounts of marketing money, then it’s a resounding ‘yes’.

But what is often not discussed is just how much you should budget for the measurement part, and exactly what you should expect to get back from it.

Magic formula

When looking at what you should be measuring, we found the formula below on the Harvard Business Review website. Although it is undoubtably correct, it also highlights the measurement challenge faced by most businesses who invest substantial amounts in marketing. Very few companies get near to measuring accurately ‘the incremental financial value gained as a result of marketing investment’.

marketing investment formula diagram

So, let’s be bold and suggest some numbers for what you could spend on marketing measurement, assuming that you want to move beyond Google’s G4 and get something that is transparent and closer to ‘incremental financial value’.

Channel complexity

A big driver of cost is the number and complexity of channels you use and the campaigns you send out. At the simple end of the spectrum are organisations purely using digital, with no call centre and all sales processed by an ecommerce system. Such ecosystems are relatively straightforward to evaluate.

At the complex end are organisations using multiple indirect channels, such as TV combined with direct, and within direct, deploying both offline and online.

To measure just your direct channels, you can almost get away with only using customer journey-based attribution or MTA1, although you will always be at risk of over claiming because you are ignoring both the baseline sales that would happen without any marketing, and the incremental effects on the brand of your marketing.

But when you are using indirect channels, with or without direct, you will need to use an approach like econometrics or MMM2 to understand both the short and the longer-term effects of your marketing.

We find that there are great benefits in terms of granularity and accuracy to be obtained from using both MTA and MMM together. The findings from the MMM provide an umbrella view, and within that the MTA gets into the detail of how effective each direct campaign really is.

Marketing attribution

From our own research into typical industry charges for marketing attribution, both simple and complex, and for different levels of budget, we have compiled the following table. This should only be regarded as a very rough and ready guide, but we felt that some indication of likely costs was more helpful than none.

In this table the percentages relate to the overall marketing spend budget across all channels:

marketing budget table

Given the likely level of improved marketing ROI once accurate measurements are in place, these levels of investment should provide a very healthy ROI in themselves. However, for that to be realised a number of conditions need to be met:

  • There needs to be cross functional support from the outset for the new measurement process being introduced, even though it may show different results from those currently being reported
  • The measurement should be transparent in terms of how it is calculated, and independent in terms of who does it. Media owners such as Google or agencies wishing to protect spending budgets cannot be relied on to do this.
  • The results need to be acted on, particularly across the budgeting process, as it is likely that spend will need to be moved from where it is now.
  • It must be accepted that however much care is taken in the marketing measurement it is not an exact science, and particularly so when extrapolating from how spend is distributed now to how it might be in the future.

However, for anyone with a substantial marketing budget, the benefits from going down the route of marketing measurement should far outweigh the costs.

 

Footnotes on MTA and MMM

1. Customer journey-based attribution or MTA works by evaluating the contribution of each individual step leading up to a sale, such as clicking through from an email or receiving a catalogue, and then attributing the value of the sale across the steps that led up to it. The value of a campaign is then derived from the value of each of the journey steps it created that preceded a sale.

2. Econometrics or MMM is a time-series based modelling approach that looks at all the possible influences impacting the volume of sales, and includes both marketing activities like TV or press, with external factors like seasonality, economic confidence, weather etc. It is good at estimating both the short-term effects of marketing and the longer term brand impacts.

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

Is There a GA4 Alternative? Yes, & It’s Here

overcome difficulty of ROMI

GA4 is the most widely used web traffic analysis tool in the world – but we all know it comes with its limitations and frustrations. GA4 alternatives can give you the freedom and customisation you need to fully understand your customers’ journeys.

Google announced in July 2023 that Universal Analytics (UA) will sunset, forcing users to switch to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) from July 1st.

Now, sometime on from making the switch, it’s become evident that the UA issues that should have been solved by GA4 have actually been replaced with a whole new set of issues. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

So, we’ve come up with our own solution.

At UniFida, we know that every business is unique and requires a tailored approach to understanding its customers. That’s why we’ve developed an alternative to GA4.

With the ability to track and attribute both online and offline customer journeys, our alternative offers a more holistic view of your customer’s interactions with your brand. We’re fully transparent about how we weigh each journey touch point, so you can trust that the data is accurate and unbiased.

But that’s not all. Our alternative also allows for advanced segmentation and customer profiling, so you can truly understand your target audience and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

If you want to discuss how our GA4 alternative can benefit your business, get in touch with us today.

Contact Us

Let’s look a little more at the issues with GA4 and why our alternative may be a better fit for your business.

What are the Problems With Google Analytics 4?

issues with google analytics 4

The likelihood is you’re here because you’re already aware of the issues with GA4. Some of them are more disruptive, while others you may not have even noticed yet.

But just to summarise, the main issues we (and many others) have identified are:

Continued Use of Data Sampling

GA4 still uses data sampling, which means that not all of your data is being analysed. This can lead to incomplete and inaccurate insights, especially for smaller businesses with lower website traffic.

Also, Google doesn’t use first-party data or individual identifiers, so other offline marketing activity data sources can’t be linked to your customer journey data. This makes it impossible to get a complete view of your customers and their interactions with your brand.

Read More: 8 Ways a CDP Can Make You a Better Customer Marketer

Black Box Attribution Rules

Black Box Attribution

One of the big problems with UA was its black box attribution rules, which GA4 has carried over. This means that you have to trust Google’s pre-defined attribution models without the ability to see or adjust them yourself.

To be fair to Google, they recognised the issue with their last-click attribution model, and developed GA4 to replace this, but we’re still not given full transparency and control over how our data is attributed.

And this can have a big impact on the way we view our customer journeys and make marketing decisions.

For example, last-click attribution often ignores any touch points prior to the final conversion, leading to a skewed view of the effectiveness of certain marketing channels.

At the other end of the spectrum, first-click attribution may give too much credit to the initial touch point and not account for subsequent interactions that played a crucial role in converting the customer.

So, how can we trust that our data is being attributed correctly by GA4 and making a true impact on our understanding of customer behaviour?

Not to mention the crucial point that Google is measuring the effectiveness of its own media, in which they have a very strong commercial interest; a classic case of marking their own homework!

Ignoring of Non-Digital Channels

Offline channels play a core part in many businesses’ marketing strategies, yet GA4 doesn’t account for them. Whether it be direct mail, door drops, call centre interactions, or even in-store experiences, these touch points often have a significant impact on customer behaviour and should not be ignored.

Indeed, ignoring them can give you a distorted view of your customers’ journeys and lead to misguided marketing decisions.

GA4 has only made Google’s marketing attribution worse, with deep frustration being expressed by many users trying to set it up, continuing use of data sampling, a historic data disconnect in July 2024, and black box attribution rules.

The fact is, GA4 lacks the functionality to make full use of first-party data and does not have the complete range of media and sales channels as standard.

What are the Alternative Tools to GA4?

GA4 alternatives

The reality is that there are other options that marketers need to be aware of. Low-cost alternatives are available with full 100% browsing data being collected through open-source technology, GDPR-compliant first-party data, and excellent browser dashboards.

At UniFida, our customer journey-based marketing attribution is fully integrated with an open-source alternative to GA4 that collects 100% of all your browsing data.

Within our platform, we integrate offline channels, such as direct mail and call centres, as well as email service providers and CRM platforms, like Salesforce or HubSpot.

The result?

A fully transparent (every score, for every step, in every customer journey is available) marketing attribution solution that can also split results by different customer segments, including new and existing.

It reports at a very high-level Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) by channel by month, and at a micro-level performance by individual campaign or UTM.

Plus, when coupled with our Customer Data Platform, you can gain a 360-degree view of your customers and their journeys, creating highly targeted and personalised marketing campaigns.

So why settle for the limitations of GA4 when you have a comprehensive and customisable solution right in front of you?

If you want to ensure total clarity around your marketing attribution, contact us today.

Contact Us

How Do We Compare to Other GA4 Alternatives?

Unifida vs GA4

There are other alternatives available, but many lack the advanced features and capabilities that our platform offers. Some may offer basic tracking and reporting, but they often fall short when it comes to integration with offline channels and advanced customer segmentation.

At UniFida, we pride ourselves on offering a comprehensive solution that meets the needs of modern marketers. Our platform is developed by data scientists with years of experience, and we continuously work to improve and update our features to stay ahead of the game.

Don’t settle for a GA4 alternative that only offers a fraction of the benefits. Choose UniFida for complete transparency, advanced capabilities, and unparalleled customer support.

How to Get Started with UniFida

Getting started is easy – simply contact us for a call with one of our experts. We’ll discuss your specific needs and how UniFida can help you achieve your marketing goals.

We can show you a demo of our platform and answer any questions you may have, giving you complete transparency and confidence in our solution.

Contact Us

FAQs

Why is GA4 So Complicated?

GA4 is new to everyone, so understandably, there is a learning curve involved. However, it’s not just the newness that makes GA4 complicated; it’s also the limitations and lack of transparency in its attribution rules. This can make it difficult to understand and trust the data being reported.

What is Better Than GA4?

There are better alternatives to GA4, such as UniFida, which offers full transparency and control over data attribution, integration with offline channels, and advanced customer segmentation capabilities. While GA4 might seem like the easier option, it doesn’t always provide the most accurate and useful insights.

What Does Open Source Mean?

Open-source refers to the use of open-source technology, which means that the source code is freely available for anyone to view, modify, and distribute. This allows for more transparency and control over data collection and processing compared to closed-source technologies.

Marketing attribution is a critical success factor

If accurate and timely marketing attribution is a critical success factor for all companies selling directly to consumers, why are so few companies achieving it, and what is needed to enable its delivery?

Let’s take a look at the key features we would expect to find in an accurate and timely marketing attribution solution:

  • Flexible application to marketing channels
  • Delivers views on customer segment effectiveness
  • Transparent, easily understood workings
  • Timely, easily interpreted results
  • Representative of the whole customer base
  • Robust data granularity for accurate return on marketing investment (ROMI)
    calculations
  • Supports incremental performance reporting
  • Sourced from an objective, independent provider
  • Compliant with GDPR

Our observation of the tools that marketers use for attribution is that most would not pass muster if assessed by these criteria. Google’s GA and G4 both fail on most of them, and many agency attribution reports are clearly not holistic and independent sources of the truth.

Marketing attribution best practice at a glance

There are two well-known methodologies, both of which can provide valuable and accurate results, though they approach the problem from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Marketing Mix modelling (MMM), or econometrics as it is also called, looks at the macro picture of all marketing channels and combines their effects with that of other influencing factors like pricing, competition, external economic factors, weather and even epidemics in working out how each of these are contributing to, or subtracting from, sales.

MMM requires a long tail of data (up to three years) and some careful statistical analysis, however the results are highly informative. They can account for brand effects alongside the immediate effects of marketing, as well as explaining natural levels of demand when no marketing takes place. Because they are looking at the bigger picture, they don’t report immediately on campaign and test results.

As MMM reports are effectively handmade they are usually run quarterly, or even six monthly, so they don’t pass our timeliness criteria, but they can succeed on the others. The level of granularity across media, customer and product types can vary depending upon the statistical significance of the data splits.

Multi Touch Attribution (MTA), or customer journey-based marketing attribution, takes the micro view and examines all the known touch points between a company and a customer in the period leading up to a sale. As such it is limited to the kinds of direct channels that leave a data trail that can be linked to customers, and excludes indirect channels like TV or press.

It looks at the short-term effects of marketing, with its strength lying in its granularity. By examining the role played by each step in the customer journeys that lead up to a sale, it can see precisely where a particular campaign or test has influenced each journey, and hence give value to it based on its attributed fraction of the resultant sale.

These steps can be online, like visiting a website after clicking through from a social ad, or offline like receiving a catalogue or having an interaction with a call centre.

MTA can meet all our criteria, and provide very detailed campaign and test attribution, except for the omission of indirect channels like press and TV.

For companies spending material amounts on both direct and indirect channels there is no question then that they should deploy both MMM and MTA. However, it is also possible to fuse the macro and micro outcomes into one overall view of the value delivered by marketing. The results from the MMM will be used to remove value from the direct channels and reattribute it back to the indirect channels, from known information about the effect and timing of indirect marketing on different customers, products and sales channels.

So, is this what companies are doing?

It seems not.

Given that the best practice techniques are well known, and that there is a widespread acceptance that much of marketing budgets are wasted, it’s perplexing why so few companies go about setting up their own attribution reporting, and instead rely on the very incomplete and often biased results provided by Google.

Estimates vary regarding how much of marketing spend is wasted, but the consensus would appear to be at least a quarter. A Komarketing survey of marketers in 2019 found that 37% acknowledged that much of their marketing budgets are wasted. And eMarketer, in the report below from Jan 2018, found that marketers believe they wasted on average 26%.

marketing budget wasted diagram

In that case, what’s stopping them from looking for a better solution?

The most significant cause of marketers not setting up their own attribution is that Google is largely free and nearly universally available. It has become the common currency because so little cost or expense of effort is required to use it.

In contrast independent marketing attribution doesn’t come free. Let’s put that in context though – for marketers spending upwards of £1m pa, the costs start at less than 5% of that budget. For marketers with a bigger budget like £10m pa, the costs are likely to be little more than 1-2%. Those numbers reduce further if the mix of channels is relatively straightforward and MMM is not required. Compare that to the current scale of budget misallocation, and cost shouldn’t be a concern.

A second possible cause is that marketers just don’t realise that easily implemented alternatives to Google are available. There are challenges naturally; it takes expertise, for example, to set up the right environment and execute certain statistical processes. The good news is these experts are available and keen to undertake the work.

A third and possibly most significant cause is that mis-spending of budgets is often invisible. Marketers, having been led down the garden path by a combination of Google and their agencies, know that no one will challenge them if they sit back and accept the often misleading and inaccurate attribution results that they are used to receiving. When this is both free and effortless it’s all too easy for the impact to go unseen, and therefore unchallenged.

Is marketing attribution best practice really going to make much of a difference?

Absolutely!

To give an example of how Google can misrepresent results, we recently compared our own MTA reporting for a UK retailer with that provided by Google:

Our MTA reporting compared to Google reporting

Catalogue sends and Internal (telephone) orders were not available to GA as it does not ingest personally identifiable information, despite constituting 45% of the drivers of orders.
GA gave Pay-Per-Click 46% more value than our MTA, and Search Engine over four times as much contribution. As GA does not allow users to inspect how their calculations are made, we are not in a position to comment on their methodology, but it does appear to be strongly biased in favour of channels they own.

In conclusion, we suggest that marketers have for a long while been seriously misled by Google, and by their agencies using Google’s tools, over how their marketing is performing. Now that alternative methodologies are well known, and there are suppliers and in-house teams capable of providing attribution services, it is reasonable to expect that the status quo regarding marketing attribution is about to be seriously challenged.

 

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.

Marketing Attribution – is there a Knowledge Gap?

Unifida’s Client Services Director Jo Young reflects on the recent Direct Commerce Association (DCA) Summit:

I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at the recent Direct Commerce Association (DCA) Summit in London. It’s a popular, friendly event, attended by a range of direct and multichannel retail businesses at all stages of growth, serving both niche and mainstream market segments.

The agenda was packed with retailing ‘hot topics’ and sessions sharing knowledge and experience between businesses. I gave a presentation on how omnichannel marketing attribution measures the way that channels work together, and how companies can use this to optimise their budgets. I outlined how one of our clients, Wentworth Wooden Puzzles, introduced attribution, and how the company is changing its focus on different media for different customer types to maximise the marketing budget.

With marketing budgets being heavily scrutinised, there is a constant pressure to prove marketing return and tighten up on waste. Omnichannel marketing attribution measures the way that channels work together (whether they are trackable or non-trackable) and helps optimise precious marketing budgets.

Earlier in the day at a panel session on Marketing Metrics, attendees were asked if they had any form of marketing attribution in place. Only a handful of people from the large audience raised their hands. This was startling and revealed a key marketing attribution knowledge gap – not only in attribution, but probably in the true effectiveness of marketing budgets too. Speaking to delegates afterwards, some said that, when it comes to marketing attribution, they did not know where to start, or thought it would be too expensive.

While many companies recognise the need to have accurate media metrics and spend their budgets wisely, they don’t realise that there are easy, cost-effective marketing attribution solutions out there that make the most of their first-party data, and can help them report accurately in order to optimise their marketing resources.

To see attribution explained simply, you can watch UniFida’s video on attribution basics.

In our Resources section, we also have a variety of articles on how organisations can benefit from attribution, including a blog post on measuring the long term impact of direct mail over other channels.

 

UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed. Our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.