What is Marketing Attribution & How Can it Benefit Your Business?

In the world of digital marketing, the process of understanding and analyzing analytics has become increasingly important for online growth and success. To fully understand and utilize this data, it's crucial to implement a marketing attribution model.

Marketing attribution aims to determine which touchpoint or combination of touchpoints influences an individual toward a goal completion or conversion. It's the practice of identifying and crediting which efforts are prompting customers to take action in the form of sales or conversions.

The Benefits of Marketing Attribution

An effective attribution model helps both marketers and business owners make better decisions. From optimizing a well-performing marketing channel to identifying any gaps in the customer journey, you'll gain numerous insights and benefits like:

Discovering which types of content result in the most ROI.
Learning where your marketing budget, resources and time can be best spent.
Gaining a clear picture of your customer's journey, including all touchpoints that lead to conversions.
Finding common sequences of all online and offline events.
Implementing clearer, more concise messaging that promotes your brand effectively.

Types of Attribution Models

There is not one single attribution model that drives success. Instead, it's important to implement and rely on multiple models to find which efforts result in the best conversions. Some of the most influential and common marketing attribution models include:

First Interaction Attribution - In this marketing attribution model, 100% of the conversion credit is assigned to the first marketing channel a customer interacts with. This model focuses on campaigns that increase traffic, build new audiences, and grow brand awareness.
Last Interaction Attribution - Unlike the former model, the last interaction attribution model gives 100% of the credit to a customer's last interaction. This is the default attribution model in most platforms, including Google Analytics.
Linear Attribution - With a linear attribution model, conversion credit is split equally between all brand touchpoints. While helpful for some scenarios, linear attribution credits all interactions and may not help identify which channels are most impactful overall.
Time Decay Attribution - This model spreads conversion credit across multiple events and considers when each brand interaction occurred. It prioritizes interactions that happen right away before a conversion occurs.
Positioned-Based Attribution - Position-based attribution, or "U-shaped" attribution, assigns conversion credit to first and last clicks.
Custom Attribution Models - Need more customization? You can create an attribution model uniquely designed to fit your data-driven decisions and review historical data to determine future content.

Developing an attribution model that works for you can help you guide your decision making, align your business goals with your marketing efforts, improve customer interactions, and so much more. Better understand your marketing efforts and allocate your budget best by partnering with a digital marketing partner like Web Tech Fusion.