Marketers have long pursued a goal that was once presumed unattainable: knowing with certainty what the impact is of any promotional or advertising spending. With the growth of digital marketing in the past two decades, marketers have better analytic data about clicks, views and other buyer behaviours that have a relationship to conversion. The problem, however, is not one of simply measuring clicks or views: it is understanding and measuring the entire journey of a buyer as they travel from initial awareness to conversion. Specifically, how many promotional milestones or touch points did the buyer encounter? How influential was each one? Marketers want to know, because precise information about the influence and effectiveness of each message, communication or ad allows unprecedented optimization of each marketing channel. Marketing attribution is the science of understanding the influence of each marketing channel on a buyer’s journey. This How-To Guide will explain marketing attribution, review various marketing attribution models, discuss when it makes sense to use it, and conclude with an action plan for implementing marketing attribution. To obtain this document, visit us at http://www.demandmetric.com/register

1. How-To Guide
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Marketing Attribution
By Jerry Rackley, Chief Analyst
September 30, 2013
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketers have long pursued a goal that was once presumed unattainable:
knowing with certainty what the impact is of any promotional or
advertising spending. With the growth of digital marketing in the past
two decades, marketers have better analytic data about clicks, views and
other buyer behaviors that have a relationship to conversion. The
problem, however, is not one of simply measuring clicks or views: it is
understanding and measuring the entire journey of a buyer as they travel
from initial awareness to conversion. Specifically, how many
promotional milestones or touch points did the buyer encounter? How
influential was each one? Marketers want to know, because precise
information about the influence and effectiveness of each message,
communication or ad allows unprecedented optimization of each
marketing channel. Marketing attribution is the science of understanding
the influence of each marketing channel on a buyer’s journey.
This How-To Guide will explain marketing attribution, review various
marketing attribution models, discuss when it makes sense to use it, and
conclude with an action plan for implementing marketing attribution.
WHAT IS MARKETING ATTRIBUTION?
To help illustrate what marketing attribution is, and why it is helpful,
consider a typical buyer journey. A buyer has a need for a solution and
solicits recommendations from friends through a social media app on her
smartphone. This triggers the display of a social media ad, which gets the
buyer’s attention. She clicks on the ad and sees an opportunity to
download a whitepaper. Completing a short form, she provides her email

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address where a link to the whitepaper is sent. She reviews the email
several days later on her PC, and after reviewing the whitepaper, does an
organic search for more information and reviews. Reading a review on a
website, she sees a banner ad which she clicks that takes her to a landing
page on the vendor’s website. With her information needs satisfied, she
clicks the “Buy Now” button on the landing page, places her order in the
cart and checks out.
This scenario reveals the challenge of and the need for marketing
attribution. The key question is, which touch point was most influential
in producing the conversion? The challenge in tracking this buyer’s
journey is that it occurred across multiple devices and involved multiple
touch points. Even just tracing the digital path the buyer followed is
difficult. A further complication is that this scenario represents just one
of many possible paths a buyer might follow to conversion, each one
involving different devices and touch points.
Marketing attribution has emerged to help marketers deal with the
scenario just described. It’s a process that gives credit to the marketing
channels that deserve it, in proportion to each channel’s contribution to
the conversion. It allows marketers to more precisely understand the
influence and contribution of each channel or touch point. With such an
understanding, marketers can make fact-based decisions about how to
optimize the entire mix of promotions, communications and ads through
all channels. The result of this attribution-driven optimization process is
higher conversion rates, increased revenue and potentially shorter sales
cycles.
MARKETING ATTRIBUTION MODELS
Conceptually, marketing attribution is not difficult to understand. The
difficulty is implementing it accurately. Some sort of model is needed to
implement marketing attribution. In theory, you would use an attribution
model that traces the entire customer journey, accounting for both online
and offline channels of influence in that path. Full customer path
attribution represents the gold standard of models, and it’s a good goal.
Getting there is probably an evolutionary process, particularly for firms
that are just beginning to experiment with attribution.
A number of marketing attribution models exist, ranging from relatively
simplistic to more comprehensive. Which model you choose depends on
how your customers typically convert, your analytics acumen and a
general willingness to invest in a marketing attribution effort.

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Here are descriptions of some of the common models:
 First click. Also known as first-touch, this model essentially
credits the entire customer purchase or conversion to the first
click, touch or encounter that customer had. For example, the first
touch point in a customer buying journey gets 100% attribution for
a conversion, even if other touch points may have influenced the
customer along the way. If this customer journey is typically
extremely short, this model may make sense. In situations where
the customer journey is long, involving many other touch points, it
makes little sense to attribute everything to the first touch or click.
It may hold true that the first touch was the most influential, but if
the customer’s path to conversion included other touch points, this
model is not recommended.
 Last click. Similar to the first click model, except the attribution
now goes entirely to the last touch point prior to conversion. The
premise of this model is that the last touch point in the customer
journey created the conversion, so it therefore gets 100% of the
attribution, even if there were many touch points along the way.
This model seems to make some sense and it has enjoyed much
popularity. But is increasingly falling out of favor because it
doesn’t account for any downstream influences that very likely
factored in the conversion.
 Linear or Equality. Unlike the first click or last click models, the
equality model acknowledges multiple touch points in the
customer buying journey, assigning equal attribution to each one.
For example, if a customer’s journey to conversion involved four
different touch points, each one is assigned 25% attribution under
this model. Equality is a good evolutionary step up from first or
last click models, but it’s not without some flaws, the biggest of
which is assuming that all touch points are equally effective and
influential, which is rarely the case.
 Custom. A custom model is the best option, and the one that most
closely approaches true customer path attribution. This model
recognizes that each firm or solution has a unique customer path to
conversion, and a model is built to provide precise attribution to
all the touch points in that path. Implementing a custom model
that attributes an accurate percentage for each touch point’s
contribution requires more advanced analytics capability and the

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technology assistance of an attribution vendor. It’s a major
improvement over the linear model, because it recognizes that not
all touch points are equally influential. The greatest attribution is
given to the touch points that have the greatest impact on the
phases of the customer journey. If, for example, analytics show
that the touch points in the discovery phase of the journey are most
impactful, they might receive 60% of the attribution, with the
remaining 40% divided in a similar manner across the awareness,
consideration and decision phases of the buying process.
There are, of course, other attribution models, as well as variations on the
ones described here, but these are the most frequently encountered.
WHEN DOES MARKETING ATTRIBUTION MAKE
SENSE?
Marketing attribution is a newer marketing discipline, and marketers who
love new approaches or are simply eager to link marketing more closely
to revenue generation will eagerly embrace it. Before jumping in to the
deep end of the marketing attribution pool, it’s worth assessing your
situation to see if it makes sense. Here are some things to consider as you
weigh the pros and cons of marketing attribution:
 Do you have a culture that will support marketing attribution?
This discipline is very data and analytics driven. Perhaps the
organizations that need marketing attribution most are those that
have long been driven or guided by intuition, opinion or
conjecture. However, these organizations are also least prepared
for the shift to a data-driven marketing culture. For such
organizations, the move to marketing attribution may seem
threatening to some and therefore requires care and sensitivity in
planning this move.
 Do you have a relatively short or simple path to customer
conversion? While it is rare, there are some firms whose
customers travel a short, streamlined path from awareness to
conversion. So short, in fact, that data and analytics needed to
understand attribution are enviably simple. If your company is
one of the few where first click or last click attribution are one and
the same, where few or no other touch points influence the
customer journey to conversion, then attribution is easy. Consider
yourself fortunate if this is your situation, but also understand that

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many forces outside your control, including competitors, will
likely introduce change into your customers’ journey.
 What are you doing with the data you already have? As
previously stated, marketing attribution is very data and analytics
driven. Chances are, however, that even if you haven’t
implemented marketing attribution, you have some marketing
analytics data – what are you doing with it? If you’re not already
using the analytics data you have to its fullest potential, you’re
probably not ready to implement marketing attribution, which will
take your analytics processes to the next level.
ACTION PLAN: IMPLEMENTING MARKETING
ATTRIBUTION
Properly implemented, marketing attribution can provide some amazing
insights about the true value of your promotional communications and
advertising. What does it take to start getting these insights? Here are
some steps you can follow:
1. Assess the need and fit
 If you’re essentially guessing when it comes to allocating
spending across various marketing channels, without real
insights into their effectiveness, you will probably get
significant benefits from marketing attribution. This is even
truer if your marketing spending is substantial and your
customers navigate a moderate to complex path to purchase.
 As discussed in the previous section, there is a cultural success
factor to consider. For marketing attribution to succeed, you
must have a culture that embraces analytics, as well as one that
is willing to invest in the process and trust the results. Without
this cultural foundation, a marketing attribution initiative is
likely to fail. A simple test is this: are you already using the
marketing analytics data that is available to you? If so, you
have some level of cultural readiness to implement marketing
attribution. If not, you need to understand why you think
marketing attribution will work for you.
2. Consider a vendor and/or advisor

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 Unless your purchase process is very simple, involving few
touch points, you will probably benefit substantially from
outside expertise and the help of a vendor. Use the Demand
Metric Business Case Template to help justify the need for
outside counsel and resources. If you opt not to use outside
resources, make sure you have the necessary analytical skills in-
house.
 Any capable vendor or advisor will provide a detailed set of
steps and implementation plan. However, if you decide to
proceed on your own, the remaining, high-level action plan
steps follow.
3. Understand the path and choose a model
 Carefully research the paths that customers navigate from
awareness to conversion. Do not trust your instincts, but
conduct proper research to understand the variations on the
customer journey, and it is likely there are several. Document
each path variation and the touch points a customer might
encounter. Use the Demand Metric Purchase Process
Diagram to help you with this task.
 Identify which attribution model you will use. Keep in mind
that the simpler models, such as last click, while easier to
implement, are less useful.
4. Data collection, analysis and usage
 Determine what data is needed to support the attribution model
you have chosen to implement.
 Define and implement data collection processes and test to
ensure they function reliably.
 Develop your analytic processes to exploit the attribution data
you collect and determine how often you should perform the
analysis.
 Use the results of your analysis to optimize your mix of touch
points. Invest more in those that are most effective, and
eliminate or scale back on those that are least effective. Always

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validate the decisions you make against future analytics to
ensure your decisions produced the desired outcome.
The steps defined in this action plan will require commitment and an
investment. Your marketing attribution process will need time to mature
to deliver full value. Factor the need to develop skills and collect a solid
base of analytic data into your business case for marketing attribution.
BOTTOM LINE
Properly implemented marketing attribution can help improve the
ROI of many marketing efforts. The fact-based decisions that
marketing attribution enables can help your marketing and advertising
perform at a higher level, and potentially at a lower cost. At the same
time, it is important to understand that marketing attribution will not fix a
fundamentally unsound marketing strategy, although it may provide
insights about how to fix it. To work best, the marketing attribution
discipline needs the support of a thoughtfully crafted marketing plan, and
vice-versa. Finally, recognize that marketing attribution is not a “once
and done” task, but an ongoing effort that yields maximum benefits when
it becomes woven into the fabric of marketing.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH ANALYST
Jerry Rackley is Chief Analyst at Demand Metric. His 30-year
marketing career began at IBM, and includes experience in the
technology and financial services sectors.
He has worked with companies ranging in size from startups to
members of the global 1000, performing marketing, marketing
communication, public relations and product management
work.