Why Worry About Multichannel Marketing Attribution?

One of the main challenges for marketers has always been proving ROI. In today’s multichannel marketing era, we may have more tools for tracking analytics, but customer journeys are also more complex than ever. Especially in the B2B space, most leads have multiple touchpoints before they finally convert to a sale.

That’s where multichannel marketing attribution comes in. When done right, it can help businesses track and model complex customer journeys to get a more realistic understanding of what’s working – and what’s not – in their marketing mix. DataRobot recently shared an executive briefing on multichannel marketing attribution that offers a useful primer on the topic.

After all, with global marketing spending projected at $457 million in 2018 (Statista), justifying that spending is critical for businesses. Equally important is tracking the cost per lead and cost per sale on different marketing efforts in order to efficiently allocate funds and reduce spending on activities that are no longer effective. Where most marketers run into problems, though, is in attributing a sale to a single touchpoint – typically the final one in a customer’s journey. But this fails to give credit to the previous touchpoints.

Say a lead for a logistics solutions company first lands on a Google ad, then gets an email, then sees a Facebook ad, and then finally calls Sales and closes the deal. All of these touchpoints should be accounted for when measuring attribution, but they may not be. When analytics programs only credit the final touchpoint (in this case, the Facebook ad), they fail to provide marketers with a full picture of how their multichannel efforts are operating in concert.

Machine learning technology is one way that DataRobot advises accurately tracking and accounting for the complex multichannel journey of real prospects. By developing intricate marketing attribution models, companies can easily visualize and understand the effectiveness of their various marketing activities. Being able to track buyer patterns and accurately measure them against marketing investments is well worth it, in our opinion.

Looking for guidance on the bigger picture when it comes to marketing efforts? Contact us today to learn how we can support your company’s marketing strategy.