Ever wondered why the phrase a “single source of truth” gets so much airtime? From conference calls to meeting halls, it seems to be all executives and upper management can talk about.

The fact is, creating a centralised hub can help you gain visibility into the inner workings of your business, from marketing and ad spend to how employees create and share information. So, you can’t underestimate its importance when it comes to attributing ROI to action.

From a marketing perspective, do you know which activities are adding to your bottom line? It’s time to find out as we look into attribution models and how they can impact the work you do next.

Attribution modelling is your secret weapon

It’s no secret that social media platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn want your hard-earned ad spend. And while they’re willing to offer you reach in return, they don’t always provide the info you need to excel here beyond single-channel analytics.

A multi touch attribution model can help you understand how each of these platforms brings in new customers as they interact with your brand at various touch points in the customer journey.

From here, you can harness this information to spend for impact, refining where you put your resources. Multi touch attribution models are most powerful when we understand what is is NOT and the various sub models that help you see the bigger picture. Let’s take a look…

First touch attribution model and last touch attribution

Some businesses give all the credit of a sale to the first or last touchpoint a customer has with a brand. So in a first touchpoint scenario, it’s their very first measurable action and the rest is discounted. In the last touchpoint scenario it goes to (you guessed it) the last touchpoint.

The marketing team is often forgotten in the last touchpoint scenario as, in bigger companies, this point lies with sales. They might be responsible for the final conversion but the lead creation started long before that. First and last touchpoint interactions form key metrics in the bigger picture but they aren’t enough to give you a complete picture.

Power up your attribution strategy with full path attribution modelling

In the B2B space, you’re selling to other businesses at an account level – not individual consumers. This means your multi channel attribution needs to consider a number of stakeholders in the buying process.

Each of them plays a role in whether or not that company enlists your products or services. That being said, their customer journey mirrors a consumer buyer’s journey in many ways. Your target audience will still interact with you externally before you can bring them into the fold. Via:

• a Facebook ad
• a Google paid search ad
• other online paid advertising
• Free trials and demos
• and your marketing touch-points, from your website to your social media

Each of these touch-points presents the chance for opportunity creation.

Get structured for better strategy in your sales cycles

Traditional methods like media mix modelling don’t work as well anymore because structure is key along the multi touch attribution journey. Customer data needs to be organised and understood to assign conversion credit more accurately.

A multi touch attribution model gives you a more granular and human-focused view into where new business is coming from, by enabling:

• Greater visibility
• Resource optimisation
• Granular data points
• Insight into where performance is enhanced during the customer journey

Your multi touch attribution model cheat sheet

Use or adapt these to create custom models that can help you determine where to assign conversion points and value for each customer type.

Linear attribution model. In a linear model, every touchpoint in the sales cycle gets equal credit for the final sale. So the lead creation touchpoint doesn’t get as much credit as in other models.

U-shaped model. In this model 40% goes to the first touch attribution and last touch attribution and the rest is distributed evenly among the other points.

Time decay attribution model. The time decay model gives more credit to touch-points the closer they get to conversion, but keeps a multi channel approach.

W-shaped model. W-shaped attribution gives 30% of the credit at the initial touchpoint, in the middle of the buying journey and at the last touchpoint with 10% split between additional points.

Full path multi touch attribution models. This marketing attribution model is a bit more complex than it seems but essentially 22.5% is attributed at the first and last touchpoint with 10% split between other touch-points.

Not all attribution models are created equal in the sales cycle

By understanding these models you can create a custom attribution model that gives you greater visibility into the performance of your sales and marketing channels and team performance. For example, some businesses even use single touch attribution at the conversion event.

This is further proof that you can do it in a way that makes sense for your business model. Only you can determine how you want to measure your marketing investments in relation to your current goals and organisation.

Design & deploy your marketing attribution!

Once you understand multi touch attribution or you’ve created a custom model to suit your marketing goals, it’s time to implement. This can be a tricky task at first so don’t be afraid to enlist help. Support can come in the form of an assembly like YDA or a multi touch attribution tool to help get you started.

It makes sense to automate some of the process in order to gain attribution insights into multiple channels. Then you can reallocate knowledge work to interpreting the data and strategic implementation.

Ready, set, go – Marketing attribution in practice

In order to get started implementing multi touch attribution offers, you’ll need to answer a few key questions:

What are your preferred models and detailed KPIs? Is your team on board and equipped? How will you track attribution specifically (with a tool? Manually?) Where will you reallocate resources between your sales and marketing efforts? Which of your propositions or approaches need to change?

This will help you begin to implement a more strategic attribution model with buy-in from your team and higher ups.

Double the results with half the money: Put your strategy in good hands

The best way to improve performance on your paid search campaigns, ads and marketing is to enlist support. Automate measuring your first and last touch-points with web analytics tools.

Enlist the help of experts to get you started and to set you up for success. Evaluate your attribution to determine whether or not you’re creating impactful marketing messages. Make sure you’re assigning credit to the right channels, efforts or collateral.

Reevaluate every marketing touch-point with the data you find. And get the team onboard to implement your attribution strategy today, with a view towards better performance tomorrow. Does this all sound like too much? We are here to help with all things marketing attribution.

Enlist Your Digital Assembly

Help us help you get started making sense of multiple models and setting up the infrastructure you need to succeed.

With the right support, you can better allocate resources, give credit where credit is due and make a case for bigger marketing and sales budgets. Don’t get left in the dark.

Contact YDA for help creating a useful attribution model that can turn your attribution credit into a more powerful tool.