In a dream world, people would click on your ad or visit your website and buy a product instantly. Of course, you don’t need us to tell you that this isn’t a dream world. After all, we all need to go back to work after a relaxing festive period with friends and family. Even if you’re like us and enjoy work, it’s impossible to get every lead or visitor to convert.
These days, the customer journey is long. In many cases, you can expect people to visit your website many times before finally converting. For example, some people will click on a blog post, see an ad on social media, come back to a blog post, research your name on Google and Facebook, and then finally return to your website to convert.
So long as you get the conversion, that’s all that matters, right? Well, there’s another issue. With customers encountering many touchpoints, which channel should get the credit for the conversion? Should the conversion go to your Facebook ad campaign or your blog post?
At first, this seems like an arbitrary question. Who cares which channel gets the credit for a conversion? The reason this is so important is that it informs marketing decisions. With no knowledge of the channels contributing to sales, where do you focus your investment? You could be wasting your budget on a channel that isn’t contributing anything to the strategy. On the other hand, you could ignore a channel that is responsible for many sales.
Introducing Marketing Attribution Models
We presented a problem in the introduction, and the solution is attribution modeling. You may have seen marketers talking about attribution modeling and decided to steer clear of the topic because it sounds confusing. Fortunately, it’s actually very simple.
You want to know which channels contribute the most to your marketing strategy - attribution models are designed to identify the answer to this question. The reason many people are confused by attribution modeling is that there’s more than just one model. In fact, there are six main options:
Which is the best one? By asking this question, you’ve fallen into the biggest trap already because you won’t necessarily find an answer to this question. Instead, you need to consider your buying cycles and goals before choosing a model.
Furthermore, don’t think that you’re stuck with one model for life. Often, businesses choose multiple models and implement them at different times. Once again, it comes down to your business and what you’re trying to learn.
As an example, you might think that a blog post is the best touchpoint for leads because this is what your last-touch attribution model tells you. Yet, you implement a first-touch attribution model and learn that most journeys start with a Facebook ad. If you had only looked at last-touch attribution, you may have discounted this Facebook ad.
As you start to compare different attribution models, you learn more about the roles that each touchpoint plays in the strategy. With this in mind, you’re ready to learn about the six main attribution models.
1. First-Touch Attribution
As the name suggests, this model ascertains the first touch that a consumer makes with the business in the customer journey. If the customer first discovers your business through Facebook, this channel will get 100% of the credit. Even if they went on to interact with other content, only the first touchpoint gets the credit.
Despite the simplicity being positive, the model ignores all other touchpoints than the first in a customer journey. Just because something is the first touch doesn’t mean that it’s the most impactful.
On the other hand, those with a short buying cycle will enjoy this model because the first touch is critical in this example.
2. Last-Touch Attribution
Next, last touch attribution gives all credit to the last touch in the customer journey. As before, this attribution model has benefits and drawbacks. Firstly, it’s another simple model to implement and is often accurate with consumers frequently clearing cookies and removing access for companies.
However, the biggest problem is the same again because all other touchpoints are ignored. Often, earlier touchpoints play a similar role in contributing to the conversion (sometimes even bigger!). Just like first-touch attribution, last-touch attribution will work with a short buying cycle.
3. Linear Attribution
Rather than giving all credit to one touchpoint, linear attribution models are the first in this list to diverge from the strategy. Instead, they offer an even split between all interactions. If somebody clicks on an email link, an ad, a blog post, and your website, all four channels will receive 25% of the credit.
This time, we have a more balanced view of your marketing strategy because every channel that contributes to the conversion gets some form of credit. Although it’s simple and gives all pertinent channels credit, one problem is that the credit isn’t weighted. For example, a poor ad that nearly caused the customer to drop from the funnel gets the same credit as the content that pulled them back in.
4. Last Non-Direct Click Attribution
As the name suggests, this is another form of last-touch attribution but this time all direct interactions are ignored. For instance, somebody clicking on your website to purchase an item is a direct form of contact. Why? Because they know about your website and have probably decided to purchase already.
What gave them this motivation? Well, we can potentially find the answer by going to the touchpoint before the direct click. Was it a Facebook ad? An email campaign? Another touchpoint?
In many cases, it’s beneficial to remove direct clicks because these are often completed with decisions already made. With the last non-direct click attribution models, you identify the touchpoints that helped customers to reach these decisions in the first place. Naturally, the biggest drawback is that one touchpoint still gets 100% of the credit while all others are ignored.
5. Position-Based Attribution
The penultimate attribution model attempts to split credit between the touchpoint that converted the stranger to a lead and the first touch. While 40% goes to the first touch, 40% goes to the touchpoint that encouraged them to become a lead, and the final 20% is shared equally to all other touchpoints.
Now, we’re starting to get into weighted attribution rather than just dishing it out equally. If a customer discovered your brand through a Facebook ad, views a blog post, and then signs up for a newsletter, the blog post would get 20% while the first and last would get 40% each. While our example only contained one touchpoint between the two major points, a real-life example could contain several.
If your business has multiple touchpoints for each lead and customer, this is one of the better models to deploy because none are ignored. Although every touchpoint gets credit, remember that two get more attention.
6. Time-Decay Attribution
Finally, we come across another weighted system whereby those closest to the conversion receive the biggest percentage of credit. While the last touch gets the largest percentage, this shrinks as you go further back in time until the first touch receives the smallest percentage. If you focus on building a strong relationship with leads and customers, this is a great model to implement.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for all businesses because the top of the funnel is essentially seen as less important. This being said, it’s useful for businesses that sell expensive B2B services/products and others with a long sales cycle.
Custom Attribution Models
We promised six attribution models, but some will want to hear about the secret seventh option - creating your own. Using Google Analytics, you can create your own model and assign percentages to specific touchpoints. If you’re a beginner, we highly recommend avoiding custom models for the moment because they’re difficult to get right.
If you have some experience with attribution models, you should know what you do and don’t like about them. From here, you can devise your own model that reflects the needs of the business. Generally speaking, custom models are best for businesses with lots of data and a long buying cycle.
By default, Google Analytics gives 100% of the credit to the last touchpoint. If you want to play around with the attribution settings, click on Attribution within your account and compare models.
Attribution Models for Marketers
Thank you for reading our article; we hope you’re not quite so panicked anymore whenever attribution modeling is mentioned. Essentially, it’s just a technique to give value to different touchpoints within the marketing strategy based on their contribution to conversions. Remember to choose the model that fits your business and compare models for a fuller view of your marketing strategy!
