What is attribution in digital marketing?

Digital Marketing

In digital marketing, attribution is the process of assigning credit for conversions and other desired outcomes to the touch points in the customer journey that drove them. In other words, it’s a way of assigning credit for sales and leads to the various marketing channels and tactics that contributed to them. But regardless of which model you choose, the goal of attribution is always to optimize your marketing efforts for the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Attribution important:

Attribution is important because it allows you to see which of your marketing efforts are driving the most conversions and other desired outcomes. Without attribution, you might be investing a lot of time and money in tactics that aren’t actually contributing to your bottom line. Attribution can also help you to identify any gaps in your customer journey. For example, if you notice that a lot of people are dropping off at a certain point in the journey, you can focus your efforts on addressing that issue. What is attribution in digital marketing? Attribution is the process of assigning a value to a conversion, or goal, and attributing it to a specific touch point in the customer journey.

How does attribution work?

  1. There are several different attribution models that you can use to attribute credit to your marketing touch points. The most common models are last-click attribution, first-click attribution, linear attribution, and time-decay attribution.
  2. Last-click attribution gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last touch point that the customer interacted with before converting. So, if a customer clicked on a Google ad, visited your website, and then converted, the Google ad would get all the credit.
  3. First-click attribution, on the other hand, gives 100% of the credit to the first touch point that the customer interacted with. So, in the same example, the Google ad would get all the credit, even though the customer also visited your website before converting.
  4. Linear attribution assigns equal credit to all of the touch points in the customer journey. So, in the example above, the Google ad, the website visit, and the conversion would all get an equal share of the credit.

Attribution model should you use:

The attribution model that you should use depends on your specific goals and objectives. If you’re looking to optimize your marketing for the greatest ROI, you’ll want to use a model that assigns the most credit to the touch points that are most likely to drive conversions.

For example, if you’re running a brand awareness campaign, you might want to use a first-click attribution model, because you want to give credit to the touch point that got the customer interested in your product or service in the first place.

On the other hand, if you’re running a lead generation campaign, you might want to use a last-click attribution model, because you want to give credit to the touch point that actually led to the conversion.

Conclusion:

Attribution is a process of assigning credit for conversions and other desired outcomes to the touch points in the customer journey that drove them. There are several different attribution models that you can use, and the one that’s right for you will depend on your specific goals and objectives.a