Attribution: Accounting vs. Marketing
Today, the association and attribution of an online conversion is largely done through a ‘last-in’ accounting-based approach. This assumes that the last piece of media seen is responsible for driving the conversion. Many web analytics providers have expanded this approach by supplementing ‘last-in’ with a ‘first-in’ and in some cases a “weighted average” methodology.
Frankly while any approach to improve the analytics around attribution are welcome, all three methodologies are simply convenient accounting-based tools to use in allocating marketing dollars. They can lead to poor marketing decisions and creating the wrong incentives among your marketing partners.
They do not – and are not designed to – answer the question on the minds of most marketers: “Did this marketing program create incremental revenue and if so how much?”
Dotomi uses an advanced test and control methodology to answer that specific question. This approach is made more powerful because of our ability to measure incrementality at the individual level through Personalized Media.
Dotomi’s approach, performed per advertiser, is a mirror of the study comScore released in November 2008 which concluded:
“With online display ads yielding click-thru rates of less than 0.1 percent, advertisers can no longer rely on click-thrus to gauge online ad performance. Doing so fails to capture the impact of advertising impressions.”
“For the studies in which both retailers’ online and offline sales were analyzed, for periods ranging from two weeks to three months after the initial exposure to an online display ad, the incremental online sales lift was 27 percent and offline sales lift was 17 percent.”
Lift in Retailers’ Online and Offline Sales among Internet Users Exposed to Display Ad; Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations; Source: comScore Brand Metrix, Norms Database; Evan Neufeld, comScore Vice President of Advertising Solutions, August 2008
To learn more about how to properly view a marketing program
from a marketer's point of view, please complete our Contact Us form.