As part of this trend, many marketers now say multi-touch attribution has become the latest must-have for brands seeking to optimize their advertising spending. Multi-touch attribution refers to tracking engagement as prospects pass through the digital sales funnel. The technology also seeks to calculate the amount of revenue generated by each step within the sales funnel. It may sound simple, but it can actually be complex when considering that systems must link together data from email systems, social media, webpages and telephone call centers. Additionally, the data must be presented in a meaningful format that is easy to understand.
Out-of-home advertising firm Wrapify is promoting its attribution service that launched early last year. The company’s services include paying car owners to wrap their vehicles with advertisements. The company then uses Bluetooth beacon technology, mobile ads and pixals to compare activities of individuals who have come within 50 feet of a wrapped car to other individuals who were in the general vicinity of the car. It then uses the data to measure in-store foot-traffic and web conversions while optimizing online advertisements. Optimization can include retargeting online consumers.
Alaska Airlines, for example, increased its web conversions by 20% after launching a campaign with Wrapify that promoted specific flight routes, according to ClickZ,
Marketing technology company Experian, meanwhile, is promoting its attribution capabilities as part of its overall platform that received a top ranking based on voting by AdWeek readers, reports MarTechSeries. Experian says its Omnimpact service provides marketers with quick access to insights and campaign data to facilitate better planning and performance.
Other firms say they are enjoying rapid growth as marketers continue to seek new attribution technology. LeadsRX, which is a marketing attribution software company, says it just filled three senior positions in response to strong demand for its services, reports Yahoo Finance. It has promoted Larry Todd as v.p. worldwide sales and it has hired Alex Weisbecker as director of attribution analytics. He previously built the attribution practice at shoe insole company Protalus. LeadsRX has also hired Lucas Sommer as director of marketing. Last month LeadsRX announced that Westwood One, America’s largest audio network, had selected its attribution technology to provide comprehensive, quantitative analysis of how audio advertising drives advertiser search and site traffic.
Marketing Management Analytics (Ipsos MMA) is also promoting its multi-touch attribution tool, which it upgraded to its 2.0 version, reports Demand Gen Report. The firm has developed its Activate Unified Marketing Planning Platform specifically to help financial planners generate measureable sales and profits with multi-touch attribution. It says its attribution works with digital media, including social networks, and traditional marketing to provide an omnichannel view of how each touchpoint drives sales. Implementing multi-touch attribution can be challenging, in large part because the technology is new, so getting senior leadership buy-in is often difficult, reports Forbes.
With that in mind, marketers proposing to implement an attribution platform should emphasize that the technology can measure an organization's key performance indicators and clearly indicate how the success of the new program will be measured. Marketers should also prepare a simple story that illustrates how tracking individuals’ journeys through a sales funnel, and understanding what stages in the process resulted in prospects becoming customers, can also assist with getting management buy-in of new attribution technology. Marketers can also emphasize that the technology can potentially improve their return on investment by providing relevant data for optimizing their advertising and campaigns.