Posts Categorized: ATTRIBUTION

THE ROAD TO GENUINE MARKETING ATTRIBUTION: A GUIDE TO GETTING IT RIGHT

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Marketing attribution is a hot topic, and thousands of leading marketers are working to understand their options as well as “what matters.” If maximising marketing ROI is your leading objective, then finding out precisely how to attribute credit for brand sales is an important challenge. But here’s the problem: basing your action plan on unverified or simplistic models is a completely unnecessary risk. It’s actually possible to scientifically estimate the precise business impact of all marketing touchpoints, and to use this information to optimise your marketing allocations. This in-plain-English guide explains the various methodologies for marketing attribution, and provides a framework for ensuring that your brand gets marketing attribution right.

Robin Davies
8th January 2013
ATTRIBUTION, CUSTOMISATION, DATA, TOP TIPS
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We’ve been reading a lot of digital marketing predictions for 2013, so we thought we’d sit down and have a look at the future growth of our industry.

Social: 2012 not only saw the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games come to our capital, but it was also the year Facebook reached one billion worldwide users. Social media seemed to be the big player last year, especially with the increase of dual screening making TV a more conversational event.

The Facebook Exchange is evolving and certainly looks promising as advertisers will be able to utilise their first party data to message prospects across the vast reach of Facebook.

Attribution: Many companies seemed to invest in alternative attribution models to ‘last click’ in 2012, a big step in the world of online advertising. Now we’d like to see advertisers using their data more effectively and seeking more genuine marketing analytics solutions.

Rules based attribution is cheap and easy to understand but it’s not terribly meaningful; there is an alternative that draws on the rigors of statistical analysis but it requires significant investment – which will hopefully be made by some of the big players in 2013.

WHAT’S GOING WRONG WITH YOUR DATA?

Data is a top priority for most marketers in the current climate, just look to what Obama’s campaign team credits much of its success; unsurprisingly it’s the use of data. But implementing this into a marketing strategy is not simple and there are many barriers for marketers as they make analysis more central to their decision making. Our US colleagues have identified some of the mistakes marketers are making; you can read the full article here on iConnection, but we’ve summarised some

below as well.

Investment: investing in a technology and skills to analyse your data can provide substantial ROI but it is a significant cost which is often a bitter pill to swallow. However Excel isn’t going to cut it and nor will Joe from accounts.
Messy data: integrating multiple data sets is what everyone’s driving for, but these all come in different formats with different errors. A few sets of quality data can provide better and more tangible insight than vast swathes of data that can’t be read or compared. Think about your platforms that capture this data
Analytics is hard: you need to look at all your data, and you need to understand it. Over simplifying a complex process isn’t going to deliver the results you want; marketers needmaths to understand these data sets.
Act now:Act on as many of these insights as your organisation can manage.

MEASURING ROI IN SOCIAL MEDIA

In an article on Mashable, it was disclosed that Twitter is putting out some new terminology at the time – CPF (cost per follower) and CPE (cost per engagement). Ignoring the obvious need for more three letter acronyms in the industry, if the cost of a follower is from $2.50 to $4, what is the value of said follower?

If you invest in a social media strategy, which is usually a resource cost, will you ever see a return on the investment? You may see an increase in followers, likes and retweets, but what’s the ROI?

This is the question that Digiday mentioned recently;

It was announced that the Association of National Advertisers had found that 62% of marketers said the “inability to prove ROI in new media platforms is their top concern.”

MEDIAPLEX SHOWCASE: FLYTHOMASCOOK

Campaign: Integrating online channels with flythomascook
Format: SEM, SEO
Advertiser: flythomascook with BLM Quantum
Campaign Info: Mediaplex was tasked with measuring the impact of all of the online marketing channels for flythomascook including; Paid search, SEO, affiliate marketing and display, identifying any changes in cost and influence ratios to make tactical recommendations in re-investment of budget.

Results: As a result of Mediaplex technology and Arena Quantum’s analytics SEO received qualification as an independent channel at FTC, which means that its SEO team can now measure the performance of natural search alongside other paid media channels.

YOY sales up 34%
YOY cost per booking down 26%
YOY ROAS up 69%
SEO share of business up 574%

Click on the image below to see the full case study:

Or follow this link: Mediaplex and Thomas Cook Case Study

MEDIAPLEX ON EXCHANGE WIRE

Our omnipotent leader and country manager, Mr Robin Davies has today been featured on Exchange Wire, discussing why we should be re-thinking attribution and why the industry should be basing models more on statistical analysis.

We always have opinions and thoughts on how the market is progressing and it’s great to share these with a wider audience. Digital marketing is supposed to have solved John Wanamaker’s question: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” But the reality is that while digital media is strides ahead of “old” media in terms of accountability, there is still some way to travel before we can give brands a wholly accurate account of the multiple variables that influence people’s online purchase decision-making.

You can read more about the issue on Exchange Wire, and if you agree with us don’t forget to get in touch.

FRACTIONAL ATTRIBUTION MODELLING

Robin recently took some time out to write a guest blog at econsultancy revolving around fractional attribution.

If you have some time read over his thoughts on why the industry still relies on the last click model, despite the fact we have had path to conversion data for many years now. Also a helpful summary and top tips on how to make the most of your data is provided.

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/9064-fractional-attribution

MEDIAPLEX AND DELL

We’ve been talking about customisation for a while now, hammering home the fact that if you’re an advertiser and you’re paying for technology, you should be able to tweak this technology to suit your objectives. There’s nothing wrong with one-stop-shop vanilla technology, it can work for some people, but if you’re investing in technology then you could have so much more.

The dream in advertising is to only target a specific group of people who you know are interested in your brand, and to target them with individual adverts that are relevant to that specific consumer. This niche targeting would mean better ROI; bolster this with a brand awareness campaign and some stellar creative and you have a stellar marketing programme. It’s the finding and targeting of individuals which is difficult – which is why you need Mediaplex (you’re on the Mediaplex blog so of course you need Meidaplex).

Here’s an example of what we did for Dell; we build an entire platform for them to help secure objectives and deliver results that a full time team of six people couldn’t come anywhere near.

Click the image below to find out more:

Or follow this link: Mediaplex and Dell Case Study

HOW MUCH IS THAT ‘LIKE’ WORTH?

I noted via Masahable the other day that Twitter is putting out some new terminology – CPF (cost per follower) and CPE (cost per engagement). Ignoring the obvious need for more three letter acronyms in the industry, if the cost of a follower is between $2.50 to $4; what is the value of the follower?

There are plenty of sites out there that offer free followers – if you follow them; they will follow you back etc.

However no business would go this route – quite rightly so, as that follower’s value is “0”, they are not going to recommend your product nor are they likely to purchase. So if the minimum spend is $15k over 3 months, at $4 a pop – this translates as 3,750 new followers.

But will you see a return on this amount?

Of course, the rise of Facebook, costs aren’t always monetary in nature, but simply “is it worth spending time on building up likes, shares etc” – a resource cost.

Some of the work that Mediaplex has been doing with social media has been done to answer this question.