How Can You Measure Offline Marketing Attribution? Learn How with UniFida

marketing plan

While digital channels now tend to make up a large element of the marketing mix, it’s important not to overlook the power of offline marketing. But offline marketing attribution can’t be measured with tools like Google Analytics, making it more challenging to track the effectiveness of these efforts.

It is certainly possible, though, with either the use of MMM (Marketing Mix Modelling) or MTA (Multi-Touch Attribution) tools.

Unlike MTA, MMM take a more holistic approach by analysing consumer behaviours, market trends, and external factors to determine the impact of indirect offline marketing channels such as TV, radio, and print ads, as well as competition and seasonality.

What is Offline Marketing?

offline marketing

Offline marketing is any type of marketing that does not involve the use of online or digital channels.

This includes traditional advertising methods such as TV and radio commercials, print ads in newspapers and magazines, direct mail campaigns, door drops, billboards, and event sponsorships.

While these methods may seem outdated compared to the digital world, they still hold great value and can be highly effective in reaching certain target audiences.

The nature of the business and target audience will determine which marketing channels are most effective.

For example, a business targeting older generations may find more success with print ads and billboards, while a business targeting younger generations would benefit mostly from social media and influencer partnerships.

Local services and events can greatly benefit from offline marketing efforts, as they can target a specific geographical area and reach potential customers who may not be as active online.

Offline marketing is also very effective in building and sustaining brand awareness.

Think about the last time you got the Tube or passed a bus stop – chances are you saw multiple advertisements for various products and services. This constant presence helps keep brands top of mind for consumers, which can lead to conversions and sales later on.

What is Offline Attribution?

offline marketing attribution

So, with all these different offline channels, how can businesses accurately measure the impact and attribution of their efforts? This is where offline marketing attribution comes in.

Offline attribution refers to the process of determining which offline marketing channels are responsible for driving conversions or sales. It allows businesses to understand the effectiveness of their offline marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

The Importance of Measuring Offline Attribution

Without proper attribution, businesses may be wasting resources on ineffective channels or missing out on potential opportunities from underutilised channels. Measuring offline attribution also allows for better budget allocation and optimisation, resulting in a higher ROI.

Furthermore, understanding how different offline channels impact each other can help businesses create more integrated and effective marketing strategies.

For example, if TV ads are found to drive website visits but not conversions, businesses can then use this information to retarget those visitors with digital ads or create more compelling landing pages to drive conversions.

Find Out Why Marketing Attribution is a Critical Success Factor

How is Offline Marketing Attribution Measured?

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Offline attribution can be measured by creating specific discount codes, creating unique landing pages for different offline campaigns, and using call-tracking software to monitor phone inquiries.

But for a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the impact of offline marketing, Econometrics or MMM tools prove to be the most effective, and even more so when combined with MTA or multi-touch attribution.

Each offline channel will be accounted for and the touch points in the customer journey will be analysed to see which channels are driving the most conversions. This includes not only the initial exposure but also any subsequent interactions with that channel.

For example, a TV ad may initially spark interest in a product, but it could be a billboard or print ad that ultimately leads to a sale.

Using these models also allows for the consideration of external factors, such as market trends and competition, which can greatly influence consumer behaviour.

In other words, no stone is left unturned when it comes to accurately measuring and attributing the impact of offline marketing efforts.

How UniFida Can Help with Offline Attribution

The question of how to go about actually collecting and analysing data from various offline channels still stands. For many businesses, the time and resources simply aren’t available to conduct this kind of analysis in-house.

This is where UniFida comes in.

Our sophisticated marketing attribution solution combines MTA and MMM to provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey and accurately attribute conversions to both indirect offline (e.g. TV) and direct offline (e.g. direct mail) marketing efforts.

We use MMM to give a wider macro view of the market and then use MTA to dive deeper into specific touch points and interactions. This powerful combination allows for a more complete understanding of customer behaviour and the effectiveness of offline marketing.

With UniFida, businesses can make strategic decisions based on data rather than relying on guesswork or assumptions. And since no business or customer journey is the same, our solutions are bespoke and tailored to fit the unique needs of each client.

Our Customer Data Platform (CDP) gives you access to near-real-time data, too, so you can track the impact of your offline campaigns and make adjustments accordingly or share insights with your team.

How We Assign Credit to Offline Direct Touch Points

Our attribution model assigns credit to all direct touch points in the customer journey, including those from offline channels.

We use a time-based attribution model that assigns credit based on the timing of each touch point and its impact on conversion, with more weight given to touch points closer to the next touch point or to conversion.

To do this, we use machine-learning algorithms to analyse large amounts of data and identify patterns and correlations between touch points and conversions. Our algorithm then assigns credit accordingly.

 

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Conclusion: Measuring Offline Marketing

In today’s digital world, offline marketing may seem like a thing of the past. But for many businesses, it still holds value and can be highly effective in reaching certain target audiences.

Proper and accurate measurement of offline marketing attribution is crucial for businesses to understand the impact and effectiveness of their efforts, and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

Through the use of Econometrics (MMM) tools, as well as sophisticated marketing attribution solutions like UniFida’s MTA, businesses can gain a comprehensive view of their customer journey and accurately attribute conversions to offline marketing efforts.

To find out how we can help your business measure your complete marketing mix, get in touch with UniFida today.

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FAQs

 

How Do You Measure Campaign Effectiveness Offline & Online?

Marketing attribution that combines MTA and MMM will give you the most accurate picture of your campaign’s effectiveness both offline and online, direct and indirect.

MTA focuses on specific touch points in the customer journey, while MMM takes a broader macro view of market trends and external factors.

What are the Types of Offline Marketing Channels?

Offline marketing channels include TV and radio commercials, print ads in newspapers and magazines, direct mail campaigns, billboards, and event sponsorships.

What are the Benefits of Measuring Offline Marketing Attribution?

Measuring offline marketing attribution allows businesses to understand the effectiveness of their efforts, make data-driven decisions for future campaigns, and allocate budgets more efficiently. It also provides insights on how different offline channels impact each other and can lead to more integrated and effective marketing strategies.

Learn From Our Recent Marketing Attribution Case Study

marketing data

There’s no better way to see the importance of marketing attribution than through a real-life example. Our latest marketing attribution case study highlights just how vital it is for businesses to properly track and measure their marketing efforts.

UniFida’s Case Study in Marketing Attribution: The Key Takeaways

  • Context: Our case study in marketing attribution demonstrates how real businesses use data and attribution models to understand which channels and tactics drive conversions and revenue.
  • The situation before: We have highlighted a holiday company with multiple brands that lacked visibility on ROMI and could not accurately measure marketing performance.
  • How we helped: By implementing a bespoke multi-touch attribution model, the business gained a full view of customer journeys across both online and offline channels.
  • The results: The bespoke model revealed key insights, including that over 50% of sales were driven by direct mail and that channel interactions significantly influenced conversions.
  • What it shows: Accurate attribution enables better budget allocation, stronger strategic decisions, and improved marketing ROI.

For businesses that simply don’t have the resources to dedicate to marketing attribution, this case study serves as a wake-up call. It showcases the insights they’re missing out on and the potential impact it could have on their bottom line.

With a sophisticated marketing attribution model in place, like the one we used in this case study, businesses can better understand which channels and tactics are truly driving conversions and allocate their resources accordingly.

Now, let’s dive into the details…

Our Most Recent Marketing Attribution Solution Example

Want to download the full case study? Click here for a PDF version.

Who: A Holiday Company With 5 Active Brands

marketing data

For this particular case study, we worked with a holiday company that sells tours to an older demographic and books over 100,000 tours a year. Most of the customers reside in the UK, but they also have a presence in other parts of the world.

With a customer base of over 1 million and 5 active brands, there’s a lot of marketing activity to track! And this is where the problem stemmed from – the lack of a proper marketing attribution model in place.

Some online and offline channels used by our client:

The Problem: No Knowledge of ROMI & Sales Due to Marketing

Our client was eagerly awaiting its upcoming marketing budget review. But in order to get approval for the 2024 budget, they first needed to know the return on marketing investment (ROMI) for each channel in 2023, which was an almost impossible task with no marketing attribution model in place.

Additionally, they were unable to pinpoint which marketing efforts were leading to sales.

Although they were receiving marketing reports from its agencies and match-backs for their direct mail campaigns, there was still no clear understanding of how all their marketing efforts were working together to drive conversions.

With no view of the impact of their marketing, our client was at risk of making inaccurate budget allocations, missing out on potential revenue, and making it more tricky to get their 2024 budget approved.

This is something we see with many businesses – a lack of proper tracking and measurement leading to inaccurate assumptions about the success of their marketing efforts. The risk of making decisions based on incomplete or incorrect data is simply too high.

Our Solution: A Comprehensive Multi-Touch Attribution Model

unifida data platform

From the off, we knew that the solution for our client would need to be comprehensive. We wanted to ensure that all their marketing efforts were tracked and accounted for, including both online and offline channels.

In order to track each customer’s touchpoint before making a booking, we set up a bespoke multi-touch marketing attribution platform. Unlike out-of-the-box solutions, our MMM platform considers each customer touchpoint instead of just ‘first’ or ‘last’ and is tailored to our client’s specific customer journeys.

We gathered data from their website, matching browsing data at an individual customer level to their direct mail base. Considering both online and offline touchpoints was crucial in this case, as the client’s target audience was not primarily online.

We trained our MTA algorithm on this historic customer journey dataset, which allowed us to add value to each step of the journey before they made a booking.

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

With these scores, we calculated the value contributed by each campaign using the sum of the values found in their customer journeys while also considering the other channels that were used.

This gave a clear view of each campaign’s contribution, as well as how channels interacted with each other, to drive conversions.

The Result: Enhanced Visibility, Strategic Insights & Approved Budget

happy simple marketing report

After implementing our multi-touch attribution model, our client gained enhanced visibility into the impact of their marketing efforts. They were able to see a clear breakdown of which channels and tactics were driving conversions and at what value.

This not only provided strategic insights for future marketing efforts but also helped secure their 2024 marketing budget, ready for a new year of successful marketing campaigns.

The data:

  • The MTA algorithm determined that just over 50% of all sales were driven by a direct mail touchpoint.
  • Direct mail also appeared to be working well when combined with other channels.
  • PPC was a big driver of conversion, but with the impact of other digital channels in comparison contributing less than 5%.

With these insights (and many more) now readily available to our client, they were able to plan their return on marketing investment (ROMI) and sales due to marketing with confidence.

Going into 2024, this holiday company was able to confidently allocate its marketing budget, knowing exactly which channels and tactics were driving the most conversions.

What to Take Away From Our Case Study in Marketing Attribution

This marketing attribution case study is just one example of the power and impact that comprehensive MTA can have on a business. Without proper tracking and measurement, businesses are simply flying blind when it comes to understanding the true success of their marketing efforts.

A sophisticated marketing attribution model not only provides valuable insights for strategic decision-making but also helps secure budget approvals and ensure optimal resource allocation.

Your customers journey’s are complex, and your marketing efforts must be accurately reflected in your data. By leaving your customer journey data untouched, businesses are missing out on the full picture of their marketing impact.

So if there’s one takeaway from our latest marketing attribution case study, it’s this: invest in a robust and tailored marketing attribution platform to truly understand the ROI of your marketing efforts and drive business success.

Get in Touch With Us Today

Whether you want to learn more about how we work or you want to immediately benefit from our complete marketing attribution solutions, we’re here to help.

Get in touch with us today and let’s discuss how we can elevate your understanding of marketing attribution to the next level.

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Want to read more of our case studies? Head to our full Case Study section for more real-life examples of how marketing attribution has helped businesses like yours succeed.

FAQs

What is an Example of Marketing Attribution?

An example of attribution in marketing is when a business tracks and measures each customer touchpoint before they make a purchase, which could include clicking on a social media ad, receiving a direct mail piece, or searching for the product on Google.

By properly attributing each touchpoint, businesses can better understand which channels and tactics are driving conversions and make informed decisions about their marketing efforts.

How Do You Start to Get a Hold of Marketing Attribution?

Data on customer journeys or touchpoints is key to starting marketing attribution. Businesses should gather data from all their marketing channels, both online and offline, and use a comprehensive attribution platform to track and measure the impact of each touchpoint on conversions.

What Types of Questions Can Marketing Attribution Answer?

Marketing attribution can answer questions such as:

  • Which marketing channels are driving the most conversions?
  • What is the return on investment for each marketing channel and campaign?
  • How do different channels and tactics work together to drive conversions?
  • Which customer touchpoints have the biggest impact on sales?
  • How can we improve our marketing efforts based on these insights?
Does Marketing Attribution Work for B2B Too?

Yes, marketing attribution can work for both B2C and B2B businesses. The key is to have a tailored attribution model that takes into account the specific customer journey of each business. This may include different touchpoints, such as attending a trade show or receiving a personalised email, that are unique to B2B sales.

With B2B marketing attribution, the target activity is often driving enquiries rather than sales.

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.

15+ Marketing Attribution Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind

deciphering data

In this era of data-driven decision-making, understanding marketing attribution is key to unlocking the full potential of a company’s marketing strategy. And what better way to highlight the importance of marketing attribution than with some eye-opening statistics?

Using data to show the importance of data – how meta!

Whether you’re doing a bit of research for your next marketing campaign or simply looking to up your analytics game, these marketing attribution statistics are sure to give you a fresh perspective on the topic, and – hopefully – convince you to take a deeper dive into the world of marketing attribution.

Marketing Attribution Stats Relevant

All of these stats are correct at the time of writing, and we have included credible sources where possible.

Marketing Attribution Implementation Stats

  • 75% of companies use multi-touch attribution to measure campaign performance. [1]
  • 81% of companies use some form of attribution model. [2]
  • 41% of companies use last-click attribution as their primary model. [3]
  • In 2017, 39% of companies carried out attribution on their marketing activities. [4]
  • Over 80% of marketers use cross-device tracking for attribution. [5]
  • Most marketers use 6 or more tools to gain performance data. [6]
  • 30% of businesses plan to change their attribution model within the next six months. [10]

While Google Analytics is a widely used tool, it has its limitations when it comes to attribution. It primarily focuses on last-click attribution, inflates the performance of Google-owned media, and doesn’t take into account offline interactions (among other things).

If you want to take your marketing attribution approach more seriously, it may be time to consider investing in a more sophisticated attribution software or tool.

Custom attribution models allow companies to tailor the attribution process to their specific business goals and needs. This can be particularly helpful for businesses with unique customer journeys or multiple touchpoints.

Here at UniFida, we deliver bespoke marketing attribution solutions for our clients, taking into account their unique business goals and customer journeys.

We consider both online and offline touchpoints to provide a comprehensive and accurate view of marketing performance.

Upgrade Your Attribution Software Today

deciphering data

Challenges & Successes of Marketing Attribution Stats

  • 46% of marketers struggle to gain actionable insights from their attribution reports. [5]
  • 59% of marketers don’t carry out marketing attribution due to a lack of knowledge. [4]
  • 40% don’t use or have delayed implementation of attribution due to lack of time. [4]
  • Fine-tuning marketing measurement and reporting is a growing priority for 84% of marketers. [11]
  • 77% of marketers say they believe they aren’t using the appropriate attribution model(s). [7]
  • Just 17% of advertisers asked by Think with Google are looking at the performance of all their digital channels together. [12]
  • 51% of CMOs increased their budget for marketing analytics between 2022 and 2023. [8]
  • 56% of marketers believe attribution is important. [7]
  • Efficiency can be increased by 15.3% when using attribution across all marketing platforms. [9]
  • Conversion rates can increase by 36% when marketing and sales activities are effectively coordinated. [13]

If there’s one thing we can take away from the stats above, it’s that implementing marketing attribution is no easy feat, but when implemented correctly, it can have a significant impact on your marketing efforts and overall business success.

At UniFida, we provide our clients with one-of-a-kind, data-driven attribution solutions to help them overcome these challenges and make the most out of their marketing efforts.

Our data scientists are behind our customer data platform and marketing attribution software, ensuring that our clients have access to the most accurate and insightful data for their marketing strategy.

Combining MMM and MTA, our omni-channel attribution approach takes into account both online and offline touchpoints, as well as indirect channels like TV, giving our clients a comprehensive view of their marketing performance.

We also calculate and feed back to you the ROMI for each channel by month, so you can more easily identify which channels and strategies are driving the most value for your business.

We’ve already proven ourselves to be an effective partner in navigating the complex world of marketing attribution for our multiple attribution clients, and we can do the same for you.

attribution report

The Importance of Marketing Attribution in Today’s Landscape

The statistics shown above illustrate just how crucial marketing attribution is in today’s data-driven landscape.

It not only helps businesses accurately measure the success of their marketing efforts, but it also provides valuable insights and data to inform future strategies.

Without a robust attribution approach, businesses can easily fall into the trap of misallocating their marketing budget and missing out on valuable opportunities for growth. And with marketing budgets constantly under scrutiny, it’s more important than ever to invest your resources in the right channels and strategies.

Marketing attribution is the only way to truly understand the impact of your marketing efforts and make informed decisions for the future.

So, if you’re not already on board with marketing attribution, these statistics should be enough to convince you of its importance.

marketing statistics pie chart

Get Help With Marketing Attribution at UniFida Today

It isn’t news to us that marketing attribution is a complex and constantly evolving field, which is why we take a tailored and data-driven approach to help our clients navigate this complexity and achieve meaningful insights.

You can leave the complexity to us and focus on using those insights to drive your marketing strategy forward.

If you’re ready to unlock the full potential of your marketing strategy with sophisticated attribution solutions, get in touch with us today.

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FAQs

How Do You Measure Marketing Attribution?

There are various ways to measure marketing attribution, including single-touch and multi-touch models.

The most accurate and sophisticated approach is omni-channel attribution, which combines both online and offline touchpoints in the customer journey. This can be done using specialised software and requires a very large amount of data to be effective.

At UniFida, we provide bespoke attribution solutions for our clients using a combination of MMM and MTA techniques. You don’t have to slug through all the data, our experts will deliver easy-to-digest insights for you.

How Do You Choose a Marketing Attribution Model?

Choosing the right marketing attribution model depends on your specific business goals, customer journeys, and available data. You may need to experiment with different models or even create a custom one to truly accurately attribute conversions.

At UniFida, we work closely with our clients to understand their unique needs and goals, and we tailor our attribution approach accordingly.

What Are the Challenges of Marketing Attribution?

Many organisations fail to consider the role of offline interactions and brand-focused campaigns in their attribution models, leading to an incomplete understanding of marketing performance. Other challenges include data integration, privacy regulations, and a lack of skilled personnel.

A vendor or software can help alleviate some of these challenges and provide advice on the best attribution approach for your business.

How Important is Marketing Attribution?

It’s more important than ever. With the rise of data-driven marketing, accurate and comprehensive attribution is crucial for understanding the impact of your marketing efforts and making informed decisions for the future.

Not investing in proper attribution can lead to misallocated budgets and missed opportunities for growth.

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.

Sources:

[1] https://martech.org/multichannel-attribution-understanding-the-metrics-behind-successful-campaigns/

[2] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/_qs/documents/8364/TwGxDDMA_AttributionWhitepaper.pdf

[3] https://www.bazaarvoice.com/blog/best-practices-marketing-attribution/

[4] https://econsultancy.com/the-state-of-marketing-attribution-research/

[5] https://jemsu.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-cross-device-attribution-for-display-campaigns-in-2023/

[6] https://www.netimperative.com/2016/05/20/rise-cross-channel-attribution-shifting-staff-key-infographic/

[7] https://leadsrx.com/resources/blog/37-mind-blowing-marketing-attribution-stats/

[8] https://vitaldesign.com/percent-of-revenue-spent-on-marketing-sales/

[9] https://llcbuddy.com/data/attribution-statistics/

[10] https://embryo.com/blog/marketing-attribution-statistics/

[11] https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/2023-marketing-measurement-attribution-survey-orgs-focused-on-generating-granular-insights-to-increase-precision/7897/

[12] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/management-and-culture/data-attribution-challenge-analysis/

[13] https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/marketing-attribution

The Best Marketing Attribution Solutions in 2025

Finding marketing attribution solutions that give you an accurate and full picture of where your conversions are coming from has always been a challenge, but it isn’t impossible.

We all know the pitfalls of Google Analytics, and even GA4 has its limitations. So how can we get a better understanding of our marketing efforts and their impact on conversions?

The answer lies in choosing the right marketing attribution vendor.

In this Article:

What is Marketing Attribution?

Marketing attribution is the process of identifying which marketing channels and touchpoints contribute to a conversion or sale. It helps marketers understand the customer journey and allocate credit to each touchpoint that influenced a purchase decision.

With this knowledge, marketers can make data-driven decisions and optimise their marketing budget for maximum ROI. In turn, this can lead to improved customer acquisition, retention and overall business growth.

Why Do You Need a Marketing Attribution System?

Without a marketing attribution system in place, it’s challenging (or nearly impossible) to accurately measure the performance of each channel and understand their impact on conversions.

For example, if you’re running a Facebook ad campaign and see an increase in sales (or conversions), it’s natural to assume the Facebook ads were successful.

But what if those same customers had also been exposed to your email marketing campaign or saw a display ad before converting?

Without attribution, you may be missing out on crucial insights into which channels are driving the most conversions and where to allocate your budget for maximum impact.

Benefits of Marketing Attribution Software
Accurate Measurement Marketing attribution software uses advanced algorithms and data models to accurately track and attribute conversions to specific touchpoints.
Multi-Touch Attribution Many marketing attribution solutions (like us at UniFida) offer multi-touch attribution, which means they can track and give credit to multiple touchpoints along the customer journey.
Data Consolidation By integrating data from various sources, marketing attribution software creates a holistic view of your customer’s journey, providing insights that individual platforms can’t offer.
Improved ROI With a better understanding of your marketing performance, you can optimise your budget and efforts for maximum ROI.

What are the Different Types of Marketing Attribution Solutions?

Marketing attribution can be measured in various ways, depending on your business goals and the complexity of your customer journey.

Here at UniFida, we use a bespoke methodology that combines Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and Econometrics (or MMM, as it’s more commonly known).

By using and marrying these two methodologies, we can provide our clients with the most comprehensive and accurate marketing attribution insights, which you won’t get with traditional MTA or MMM alone.

But what are these different types of marketing attribution solutions? Let’s take a look:

Multi-Touch Attribution

  • Assigns credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey, not just the last one
  • Gives a more accurate and complete picture of how different marketing channels and tactics are contributing to conversions
  • Takes into account the entire customer journey, from the first touchpoint to the conversion
  • Can be customised based on specific business goals and objectives

Multi-Touch Attribution – or MTA – is a data-driven attribution model that assigns credit to multiple touchpoints along the customer journey.

Rather than giving all the credit to the last touchpoint before conversion, MTA recognises that there are usually several touchpoints that contribute to a sale.

It’s well known that Google Analytics frequently uses the last click across all channels to attribute a conversion. But in today’s multi-channel, multi-device world, this approach is limiting and often doesn’t give an accurate representation of the customer journey.

MTA aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of each channel’s impact on conversions, giving marketers the insights needed to optimise their efforts.

Read More About Out Marketing Attribution Solution

UniFida’s Econometrics (or MMM)

  • Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) takes a more holistic approach to attribution by analysing historical data and identifying the impact of each marketing channel on overall sales.
  • It considers all touchpoints along the customer journey, including offline channels such as TV, radio, and print.
  • MMM also takes into account external factors like seasonality, economic conditions, and competitive activities.

UniFida’s Econometrics, or Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM), is a statistical model that measures the impact of each marketing channel and touchpoint on overall sales. It also considers other external factors such as the economy, competition and seasonality, which, as we know, all have an impact on sales.

Unlike MTA, MMM looks at the entire marketing mix and not just direct or digital channels. It provides a holistic view of your overall marketing performance and helps identify which channels are driving the most significant return on investment.

This requires a significant amount of data and analytics expertise, but the insights gained can prove invaluable for businesses looking to make data-driven decisions.

How UniFida Combines MTA & MMM Marketing Attribution Solutions

As mentioned earlier, at UniFida, we combine the best of both worlds by using a bespoke methodology that marries Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and UniFida Econometrics (MMM), giving an omnichannel marketing attribution solution.

The UniFida Multi-Touch Marketing Attribution takes into account all direct channels where a one-to-one relationship between your business and the consumer exists – this could be through…

  • Organic search
  • Email
  • PPC
  • Branded search
  • SMS

…and more.

By placing a piece of code on your website, we can uncover the complete, unbiased customer journey from the past 90 days, from the initial touchpoint to the final sale.

We then combine this data with our Econometrics analysis to bring in all the indirect channels, such as TV, Radio, and Print campaigns. This gives our clients a full view of their entire marketing mix and how it contributed to each sale.

We also calculate the ROMI for each channel, so you can see exactly which ones are driving the most significant return on investment and use this data to inform future marketing decisions or present to stakeholders.

Enquire Today for More on How UniFida Can Help

How We Use Machine Learning in Our Custom Attribution Model

We take our UniFida Marketing Attribution solution a step further by using machine learning to automatically attribute a ‘weight’ to each event along the customer journey. We use a time-based attribution model, where the closer an event is to the next step in the journey or the sale the more weight it’s given.

This approach allows us to provide more accurate and timely insights, as well as adapt to changes in consumer behaviour and the marketing landscape.

Why Google Attribution Systems May Not Be Enough

Google offers various attribution models, including ‘last-click’, ‘first-touch’ and even a data-driven model that uses machine learning. While these may work for some businesses, they have their limitations.

Limited Data: Google’s attribution models only consider data within the Google ecosystem, leaving out crucial touchpoints from other channels.

Lack of Customisation: Google’s models cannot be customised to fit your unique business goals and customer journey.

No Econometrics: Google’s models do not take into account external factors that may impact sales, such as the economy or seasonality.

Black box: Google is scoring its owned media and not telling you how

In order to gain the deepest and most accurate insights into your marketing performance, it’s essential to use a vendor that offers bespoke solutions tailored to your business – like us at UniFida.

Choose UniFida as Your Marketing Attribution Partner

We’ve worked with numerous clients from various industries from cruise lines to wine retailers and have helped them gain valuable insights into their marketing efforts. Our combination of MTA and MMM allows us to provide comprehensive and accurate attribution insights that traditional methods cannot match.

Don’t settle for incomplete or inaccurate data – partner with UniFida and gain a clear understanding of your marketing performance.

Contact us today to learn more about our marketing attribution solutions and how we can help your business grow.

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FAQs

What is An Example of Marketing Attribution?

An example of marketing attribution would be a customer seeing an ad on Facebook, clicking through to your website, and then making a purchase. In this case, the Facebook ad would receive credit for the sale in the marketing attribution model.

What is a Marketing Attribution Tool?

A marketing attribution tool’s job is to track and attribute conversions to specific marketing channels and touchpoints. It helps marketers understand the customer journey and how each channel contributes to a sale.

What is the Goal of Marketing Attribution?

Marketing attribution aims to provide a better understanding of which marketing channels and touchpoints are driving conversions, allowing marketers to make data-driven decisions and optimise their efforts for maximum marketing ROI.

What is the Marketing Attribution Theory?

Marketing attribution theory is the concept of assigning credit to different marketing channels and touchpoints along the customer journey. It recognises that multiple touchpoints can contribute to a sale and aims to accurately measure their impact on conversions.

How Do You Choose the Right Attribution Model?

The right marketing attribution model depends on your business goals and the complexity of your customer journey. It’s essential to partner with a vendor that offers customisable solutions and has expertise in both MTA and MMM methodologies, like UniFida.

By combining Multi-Touch Attribution and Econometrics, we can provide the most accurate and comprehensive insights into your marketing performance. Contact us today to learn more about our bespoke marketing attribution solutions.

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.

Multi-touch attribution (MTA) is a game-changer for marketing – but why is it often ignored?

illustration of figures joined in connective web

MTA (multi-touch attribution) is an approach to measuring marketing effectiveness that works by linking all the known steps in a customer journey prior to a sale being made. It then uses machine learning to allocate weights to the value of each step according to the way they each contribute towards a sale.

MTA works well for all direct channels, both online and offline. However, it does not cover indirect channels such as TV, press, or brand development, all of which are best measured using econometrics (or MMM) alongside MTA.

A marketing campaign will contribute to a number of recognisable steps in successful customer journeys, each of which will be allocated a share of the value of the sale. The campaign’s value is then judged to be equal to the sum of the values of each of the steps it creates.

As well as providing accurate, timely campaign measurement where sales are not double-counted (unlike siloed media reports), MTA provides valuable insight into which individuals have been influenced by which campaigns.

So, what are the barriers to adopting MTA? Here are answers to six key questions.

1. Isn’t introducing MTA very costly because of the investment in technology and time required to make it work?

MTA does need technology and time to build the customer journeys from online data, such as click-throughs to your website, or offline steps like receiving a DM communication, and then reporting the results. But the cloud-based technology to do this exists. Depending on scale, the cost of running an MTA programme should be less than 3% of marketing costs for a marketer spending around £1 million pa on marketing, and less than 1% for a marketer spending upwards of £10 million pa.

2. Does too much data from too many sources make MTA practical?

Well, it is true that multiple data feeds are required to build the journeys, but in a typical retail case, for example, you will not need more than a first-party data feed from your website, where 100% of allowable browsing activity is needed, combined with a selected feed from your e-commerce system, your customer database, and any offline contacts, such as DM.

You may also want to introduce call centre contacts if these play a significant role in the journeys. To join all this data together, and build the journeys, you will need something equivalent to a customer data platform (CDP). However, most CDPs come with built in connectors, and there are cheaper alternatives to Google Big Query for collecting the individual browsing data.

3. Are the customer journeys too complex to weight, and can I trust the scores given to the individual steps?

It is true that some customer journeys can be complex, but others are very simple. At Unifida, we find examples where journeys are just one step, and others when they are longer than ten. The average is often between three and four. However, if the machine learning that drives the weighting is set up correctly, then the number of steps in a customer journey does not influence the accuracy of the result.

These charts give an indication of the number of steps and time length of journeys you can expect to find:

Multi-touch Attribution Graph showing distinct channels

 

Multi-touch Attribution Graph showing customer journey distributions

The best MTA technology makes the scores given to individual steps in each customer journey transparent to the user, so that you can see precisely how each step in each customer journey is weighted. This in itself goes a long way towards developing confidence in the results. The machine learning behind the weighting should be trained on each client’s data to understand the average pattern and shape of the journeys.

At UniFida we allocate the weightings according to the position of each step in the journey (i.e. is it at the start, end or middle of the journey?) and the time intervals before and after each step. So, a step will be given more value the less time it takes to get to the next one, and vice versa. We recognise there is no ultimate right or wrong in the way that journey steps are scored, but we know empirically that this approach provides what appear to be very sensible results.

4. I know that different types of customers respond differently to different types of marketing, but can I understand that from MTA reporting?

This is often a key concern given that different customer groups, such as new or existing customers, respond to marketing communications in varying ways. To be able to look at what different customer groups are responding to, you will need to import data from your customer database so that, at the moment when a sale is made, you can identify what segment the customer is in.

You will know whether it’s a sale made to a new recruit, or a high-value existing customer, for instance. With the customer segment for each sale identified, you can then filter the attribution reports down to the segment you are interested in.

5. How can I allocate the marketing costs to each individual campaign?

Marketers should have the ability to input campaign costs into their MTA platforms. However, we find that marketers often have limited time or lack access to the detail to input costs for every single campaign element. Even so, they will know how much they spent in a month on a particular channel, such as Facebook. This is where a good MTA platform can help because it can take the overall spend in a channel for a month, calculate how many customer journey steps that spend created, and then compute the average cost per successful step.

These steps can then be summed up at an individual campaign level. This will not be perfect because different campaigns will have different costs per step, but it makes for a reasonable approximation. For more accuracy on important campaigns, these campaign costs can be input individually for precise calculations.

6. After all this, when I get the actual MTA reports, will they be of any use to me?

It always possible to totally ignore the MTA reports and carry on spending marketing money based on whim and intuition, but this would be throwing away a great value opportunity.

We find that clients tend to use the MTA reports in two very different ways: first to look at the big picture in terms of the return on marketing investment (ROMI) by channel at different times of year; and secondly, by looking at the individual results for each campaign and testing to see how they are performing, and how they interact with other channels and different customer types.

The benefit from the ‘big picture’ analysis is that you can use it to shift marketing budget to where the best ROMI can be found, thus cutting out dead wood, as well as spending more when the ROMI is highest. A word of caution – although the MTA provides a good retrospective view of how marketing has performed, it does not routinely provide forward predictions. Where these are required, we suggest introducing MMM or econometrics alongside MTA to provide an understanding of the return that could be expected from different levels of future investment in different channels, which can take into account the full marketing mix and external factors.

The benefits from the micro-level campaign and test analysis are that you can change campaigns very quickly, see how they are performing, determine test results, and understand how different campaigns are interacting with each other – without double-counting sales. Your MTA platform should be reporting in near real-time to help with these decisions.

The overall benefits from introducing MTA will be a function of the improved ROMI achieved from the better understanding of marketing performance over the cost of the MTA itself. Every company is different, so generalisations about improvement should be treated with caution, but you should not be surprised to find that, once you are acting on the MTA results, you can get a x10 benefit from your investment in it.

If this encourages you to consider introducing MTA, or undertaking an MTA proof of concept, because you are struggling to get a proper understanding of the returns you are getting from your marketing, then please talk to us about it. We have experience of introducing MTA across multiple companies in industries as different as retail, subscription, insurance, news media, cruising and lotteries. At no cost, we can also give you an assessment of whether your company is a suitable case for introducing MTA, and at what level of investment.

Contact us at [email protected], or call 0203 960 6472, or check out our website www.unifida.co.uk

Read more about Marketing Attribution >

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.

Institute says 80% of CDPs are showing significant benefits

According to the Customer Data Platform Institute’s Industry Update July 2023, around 80% of CDPs are showing significant benefits. Their update also reveals a number of other interesting findings that are worth sharing:

  • The importance of relating data unification projects to business goals – put simply, a single customer view is only worth what you can use it for. The most popular uses mentioned in the report were customer data analysis, orchestration of customer communications and selection of messaging. For our part, we would like to add customer journey-based marketing attribution.
  • The biggest CDP deployment problem is the client’s organisation – in effect users need to get cooperation across an organisation and then invest in the team skills required to use the capability properly.
  • CDP projects that are managed by marketers are more likely to be successful than those managed by IT – the most likely explanation we would suggest is that marketers are going to rely on their CDP to deliver marketing results and this requires having full operational effectiveness. They cannot risk it failing.
  • Companies are showing increasing concerns about privacy compliance – this is most probably the result of increased publicity being given to data security breaches and personal data privacy issues. Indeed, we find it hard to understand how an organisation can manage customer consents without a unified customer view.
  • CDPs are no longer in the category of marketing technology that only very large companies can afford – many of the survey respondents engaged with CDPs were working for companies with sales in the $10m to $100m range, which is small by US standards.

The update is fascinating reading for anyone interested in introducing a CDP, or maximising value from an existing CDP. Membership of the Customer Data Platform Institute is free, visit their website for more information.

Logo and wording about joining the institute

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.

Top 8 ways a CDP can make you a better customer marketer

CDPs – Customer Data Platforms – are often just evaluated from the viewpoint of facilitating
timely, relevant and personalised customer communications. Properly configured, a CDP can
also hold a complete history of every customer interaction, from online to direct mail,
opening up very valuable insights into customer understanding.

Here are the top 8 ways a CDP can help you better manage your customer marketing:

1: Measuring how each and every aspect of your direct marketing is performing.

Having every customer touchpoint in place leading up to each of your sales is a critical
requirement for delivering customer journey-based marketing attribution. This works best
when you have a scoring system in place that can share out the value of each sale across the
touchpoints that lead up to it, according to the contribution they make. In this way you can
not only compute the value of each of your online and offline campaigns, but also look at
how different customer groups, for example new vs. existing customers, are impacted by
your marketing activities. And you can start to look at how each channel performs in
different seasons.

2: Knowing the longer-term value of customers recruited through different channels and via different campaigns.

Longer term customer value varies hugely across the different types of customers you
recruit and different channels will attract different types of customers. So, assuming you
know how a customer was recruited, you can start to understand what their longer-term
value is likely to be. This can be problematical where several channels are involved in a
single sale, but you can look at the longer-term value of all the customers gained via a
particular channel or campaign. You can also drill down further and differentiate customers
by other criteria, such as previous relationship with your brand, geography, or even age
band. Understanding customer longer-term value allows you to set maximum costs for
acquisition and get a better understanding of the returns from marketing investments.

3: Predicting lapse levels and lapse timing for subscription products.

Anyone selling a subscription product, whether it be an insurance policy or a magazine, will
know how vital it is to recruit and retain ‘sticky’ customers. Fortunately, the data residing in
your CDP should allow you to model retention with a great deal of accuracy. This is because
you will be holding not only the payment records of each subscribing customer, but also a
great deal of information about them. There are several statistical methods for doing this,
but we tend to use CHAID as it divides customers up into identifiable groups with different
expected levels of longevity. Your historic data can also be used to show what proportion of
your expected lapses are likely to happen each month, which can be of vital importance for
cash flow planning.

4: Building customer segmentations to help you better understand the needs of different customer types.

Marketers need to simplify the problem of dealing with many different types of customer
requirement. The proven way to achieve this is to build a customer segmentation that gives
you a handful of groups for which you can devise different marketing strategies, or even
different products and propositions.
There are many techniques for building customer segmentations, but we like to use one
that allows you to allocate customers with relative simplicity into their correct segment, and
also to find similar types of people outside of your own customer base. For customers within
the customer base, criteria such as value, previous sales or enquiries, and types of
merchandise they buy, often groups customers meaningfully. For customers outside the
customer base, segments are often defined by, for example, affluence or age band. Once
the segmentation structure has been developed your CDP will allow you to allocate each
customer to a segment and plan your communications strategy accordingly.

5: Managing all your GDPR consents in one place.

Customers deposit their consents in many different places. They may unsubscribe from one
newsletter, opt-in to another, decline cookies on a website but approve receipt of customer
marketing when placing an order. A marketer has to establish order in what is often a very
untidy consents landscape and then define clear communications rules about what can be
sent to whom on which pretext.
Your CDP is the one place where, through identity resolution, consents can be bought
together and organised and rules about who can get which communication established. The
CDP can also provide most of the materials for fulfilling Subject Access Requests, as well as
manage anonymisation of data when the right to be forgotten is exercised.

6: Planning business development based on a customer value model.

Businesses need clarity on the growth and quality of their customer base, not least to
understand how to split the marketing budget between acquisition and retention marketing
to meet business objectives. Your CDP will hold a record of the historic value contributed by
each individual customer and you will know what that amounts to in any historic calendar
year. It will also tell you what percentage of customers recruited in previous years typically
order in the current period. Using this information you can, with reasonable accuracy,
predict what value, for example, your customers recruited this year will contribute during
the next year and how this will be distributed month by month.
You will also know how your new customer recruitment usually lands month by month, and
the value new recruits contribute in the period from when they were recruited to the end of
the year. Pulling all this together you can calculate how many customers you will need to
recruit in a future time period to meet a specific overall sales target. We call this the
customer value model, all made possible by data held in your CDP.

7: Providing data for building response and upsell propensity models.

Predicting response by different channels can save a considerable amount of the marketing
budget, enabling marketers to avoid activity that will not produce a strong return on
investment. To build a predictive model you need a target variable, like propensity to make
a second order, as well as predictor variables, which are facts known about the customers –
in this case, both for those who buy the second product and for those who don’t.
The role of the CDP is to provide this data to the data scientist, or the AI tool, which is going
to build the model. But as well as providing the data that allows the predictive model to be
built, it also provides the data that then allows every customer to be scored up with a
probability of doing whatever is being predicted. Indeed, without a CDP, developing and
using propensity models for marketing is made very much more difficult.

8: Recruiting customers to join research panels.

Many companies like to maintain continuous panels of customers who have agreed to answer market research questions, usually in exchange for some value given back to them.
The CDP can provide randomly selected customers for recruitment to these panels, as well
as managing the exercise of sending them questionnaires and recording their responses.
Customer panels are very much simpler to manage if you start with a CDP already in place.
Overall, a CDP should be seen as an essential component in the complex process of
maximising your customer revenue through improving your customer marketing.

 

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.

Q & A: Customer Journey-Based Marketing Attribution

Below are some frequently asked questions about customer journey-based marketing attribution – and some insightful answers.

 

What is customer journey-based marketing attribution?

People usually receive or respond to multiple communications on their way to making a purchase. These can be online, such as a Facebook ad, or offline, such as receiving a catalogue. Customer journey-based marketing attribution looks at all the interactions between a customer and an organisation before a sale in order to analyse the role of each interaction, and hence their contribution to the sale.

Which channels are normally included?

We expect to include all ‘direct’ channels, in other words those where there is a one-to-one relationship between the customer and the company, or where there is a direct link through an online user clicking on a digital ad (such as PPC) and visiting the company’s website. An email is direct because it goes to a known recipient, whereas a press ad is not because the recipient is unknown. However indirect channels, such as TV, press, and outdoor, can also be very important. These require a different attribution technique called econometrics.

How do you link the steps in a customer journey?

We start by putting a snippet of code on your website to enable us to download into our attribution platform all of your (first party) website visitors’ browsing activity, including, most importantly, how they arrived at your site. This allows us to distinguish, for instance, between a referral, a branded search or a natural search. We then link the browsing to any offline journey steps by joining them to individuals using identifiers they have provided. To obtain the non-web contact activity we ingest feeds into our Customer Data Platform (CDP) from sources such as your email service provider, direct mail contact history, and your order processing system.

As not all journeys lead to a sale, what do you do with the unsuccessful journeys?

The brutal truth is that for attributing value to marketing activities we ignore them, which is not to say that the unsuccessful journeys are unimportant as they are key when we aredescribing customer journeys overall and understanding the total spend through a particular channel (i.e. we need successful plus unsuccessful spend). But a campaign will only have value attributed to it from the journey steps it created that led to a successful outcome.

How far back in time do you go when looking at customer journeys?

We normally look back 90 days before each sale, although some clients ask us to look at shorter periods, e.g. 30 days. To a large extent it depends on the type of purchase and the channels used. For instance, a catalogue will have a much longer shelf life than an opened email, so we need to give it time to have its effect.

How do you decide on what weight to give to each step in a customer journey?

It is obvious that all journey steps are not of equal importance, so weighting them correctly is crucial to obtaining a successful attribution outcome. There is a great deal of online discussion about this subject, with different approaches being debated, but we have opted for a method which is mainly based on the time intervals before and after each journey step.
If, for example, an event happens just before a sale, we give it a high closing score. In contrast, if there is a long interval after the first event, then we conclude that it could not have had too much of an impact on initiating the sale. We also give credit to events that help keep the customer interested without actually closing the sale. If you would like a more detailed note on how our weightings work, we would be pleased to share this with you.

Are there certain types of event that you ignore?

Yes. Multiple opens of the same email on the same day is one example, as is a visit to PayPal just before closing a sale. We try to eliminate anything that does not contribute to the customer’s decision to purchase.

Can you distinguish the different behaviours of different customer groups when responding
to marketing events?

We can. For example, new and existing customers behave entirely differently in terms of the kinds of journeys they make and what marketing events they respond to. Another way we divide up customers is between those who mainly search and buy online and to those who order through a call centre. But you may also wish to look at the impacts of marketing on different types of customer segment, and our platform can support that.

Do you look at how different channels perform at different times of year?

We do, and we find very significant seasonal differences. To show this, we have a specific report providing month-by-month summaries so that we can, for instance, compare email or any other channel’s performance in one month with another.

Do you always look at sales when calculating marketing attribution, or can you look at other goals, such as lead generation?

We often look at non-sale outcomes, and, for instance, recently we have been working for a charity that they wanted us to look at how they get their users to take up different tools that they provide on their website. When looking at non-sales outcomes we lose the value element that we have in a sale, but otherwise the process works in an identical way.

How up-to-date are your reports?

They are always available online at any time and the data behind them is processed each night. So on any day you will be looking at results up to midnight the day before.

Do you aim to answer questions other than the value obtained from customer journeys?

We are finding that this is an increasingly important area, and to respond to our clients’ requests we are building a whole suite of customer journey reports. These will answer questions about the lengths of journeys, the mix of channels used and the sequence in which they appear in the journeys.

Is customer journey-based attribution GDPR compliant?

Yes. It uses only your organisation’s first party data and excludes cookie and analysis opt-outs, for example.

Why not just use Google?

Whether you are using Google Ads or the new or old version of Google Analytics, they have well-documented flaws – namely inaccuracy and incompleteness. Google Ads uses the last Google Ads click, but Google Analytics uses the last click across all channels, so over-reports as it does not take into account other channel’s contributions. Google recognises that this is an issue and has developed Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to
replace the previous version called Universal Analytics – but this will not solve the core flaws. GA4 will use black-box algorithms and again will not take into account all marketing activity. Google is sampled and segments cannot be applied retrospectively for analysis.
Google does not use first-party data or individual identifiers, so it cannot be joined to other data sources of marketing activity.

 

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.

Delivering successful marketing attribution projects

You might think that introducing accurate omni-channel marketing attribution is a sensible thing to do and that there would be a limited chance of failure. But think again, as these projects can and do fail.

The reasons are mainly to do with what they are replacing. Prior to the start of such a project there was probably no one person with overall responsibility for marketing attribution, or even someone with it in their job description. Instead, there are likely to have been many local attribution activities, each one designed to prove to the business that team X or Y, or channel Z, was doing a good job. The most typical team silos are digital and direct marketing, yet these teams have the most to benefit from working together on attribution.

Attribution projects

It is common to find attribution projects limited by media channel, such as including selected digital channels with no account for direct channels, or limited by sales channel, such as just including online sales with no account for call centre or store sales – or both. The attribution work may have been done internally, but more often externally by an advertising agency. And the external agency may be driven by a need to keep funds flowing through their channel, rather than necessarily being focussed on the end contribution of their activities.

Some marketing attribution looks at more superficial measures such as opens and clicks, rather than at the longer-term value generated by a campaign. Again, they often ignore the fact that orders are usually achieved through a combination of customer interactions in more than one channel.

So, a new omni-channel marketing attribution project, centrally and professionally managed, is definitely going to be disruptive for certain vested interests.

Avoiding disruption

To avoid internal alienation and disruption, it is essential that the entire company management team, from finance to marketing, buys into the project from the start and has confidence in the methodology that is being used. They also need agree that they will respect the results produced, even when they may upgrade or downgrade the value contributed by certain existing activities.

However, as one US commentator recently put it, ‘algos make a unified approach possible’. The ‘algos’ (or algorithms) are what make omni-channel marketing attribution possible, and if they are well designed, they will deliver trustworthy attribution results that can be used to guide marketing spend, and optimise budget allocation in the future.

If the business is aware from the start of the consequences – as well as the immense benefits – of introducing accurate omni-channel marketing attribution, then the project can succeed, and the business can optimise the marketing budget and reap the sales and growth rewards.

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.

Why marketeers must not lose sight of value-based marketing

Among the objectives marketers often set themselves, ROMI (return on marketing investment) is normally near the top. The problem is that, although it is comparatively easy to measure the overall investment, it is much harder to measure the value. Value and cost per sale have a habit of varying hugely – hence their importance to marketers.

For example:

  • The value of an insurance sale will depend on the annual premium income, the probability of lapse or renewal, and the likelihood of a claim
  • The value of most retail sales depends on what the customer does next. Do they repeat, buy something different, or never use the retailer again?
  • The value of a media subscription relies mainly on their longevity, but can include some cross sales
  • The value from recruiting charity donors is based on the expectation that they will continue to act with generosity.

It’s quite a challenge however to think of a category of sales where there is just a single fixed value. A few come to mind, including:

  • Estate agents selling houses are unlikely to factor in an individual’s next purchase
  • Repeat funeral plan sales are rare, unless the purchaser is buying additional plans for their loved ones
  • One trip on a Virgin Galactic VSS space plane should be sufficient for most people!

Investing where the value is

But understanding the longer-term value of each sale can secure a company’s future because its marketers can place their marketing investments where the value is. Here are a couple of examples:

  • One of our retail clients is selling a product for which there is no necessity for customers to repeat purchase. Nevertheless, it has enormously divergent examples of customer behaviour when it comes to doing so. The bottom 50% of customers recruited have an average life-time value of £50, while the top 5% have an average of £2800.
  • When we analysed the value of policies sold by another client, a life insurance distributor, we found that, depending on where and how the customers were recruited, the contribution per policy sold varied from + £404 down to – £277, after taking into account marketing costs and expected clawbacks from lapsing.

So why do marketeers shy away from looking at the value they are really creating, and yet invest time in looking at explanatory metrics, such as cost per click-through, or the number of impressions? We guess it’s because predicting longer-term value goes into the ‘too difficult’ category and gets conveniently ignored.

But for those prepared to take the plunge and align their spend to longer-term value, there are two necessary parts to the analysis – accurate marketing attribution to determine the cost of making each individual sale, and an approach to predicting the longer-term value of each sale once it has been made.

Determining the cost of each sale

Acknowledging the fact that in today’s world most sales come at the end of a customer journey, this requires joining together the steps in each journey and then understanding what they cost to deliver.

As the charts below show, customer journeys may involve multiple channels and continue for some time.

Distribution of Distinct Channels in Customer Journeys

Distribution of Customer Journeys length

 

The technology required to do this must link both online steps – such as click-throughs to a website from social media – and offline steps, like receiving an item of direct mail. Having joined the steps together, there is the question of how much they each cost. In our opinion, that should be the cost of a campaign, divided by the number of steps where it contributed to journeys that end up with a sale actually being made.

An email campaign may be sent to 10,000 people, but only contribute to 100 sales, so the effective unit step cost of the campaign is just 100th of the overall cost. This calculation can then be further refined by sharing the sale value disproportionately between the steps that led up to it, according to the relative contribution to the sale that they made. Having attributed a cost to each step, these can be summed up to provide a cost per sale.

Predicting longer-term value

Deciding how to do this will be driven by the industry sector and the sale type being made, whether, for example, it is a sale recruiting a new customer, or one to an existing customer. If we take as an example just one type of sale, like an insurance policy or a media subscription, then predicting lapse becomes critical to the value equation. There are many different techniques for doing this, but our preference is to use CHAID* to predict the overall probability of someone lapsing within a given time period.

Chaid Model diagram

This kind of technique will divide policies sold into distinct groups, each with a different expectation of lapse rates, based on the known characteristics of the customer and the policy they have bought.

The next question is: when will they lapse inside that period? This is where we use historical evidence based on different lapse timing for different cohorts of policy purchases. If, however, the sale is a retail one, then we will be looking to forecast for each recruit their expected future value within the next season or year. Every business will have its own unique requirements for predicting longer term sales value.

Providing the best ROMI

All this may, when viewed in the round, look somewhat difficult to achieve and there are many compromises that can be made when aiming to link marketing investments to their future value delivered. Costs per sale may be grouped into costs for a particular product category and value may be averaged over a large cohort of sales.

However, we strongly believe that, given the vastly varying value of individual sales made, and the importance of recruiting customers that provide the best ROMI, it is essential to go down this route.

*CHAID analysis (Chi Squared Automatic Interaction Detection) is a statistical technique is used in market research.

 

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.