Kenshoo, in a newly commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, titled “Cross-Channel Attribution Must Convert Insights Into Action,” includes a survey of advertisers, agencies, and analytics professionals in the U.S. and Europe. It outlines challenges marketers face when implementing cross-channel attribution, the benefits they reap from doing so, and the importance of connecting attribution modeling to bid management platforms in an automated manner.
Attribution is the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events”) that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then assigning a value to each of these events. Marketing attribution provides a level of understanding of what combination of events influence individuals to engage in a desired behavior, typically referred to as a conversion… Wikipedia
The study yielded three key findings:
These findings verify what many marketers intuitively know; marketing attribution is still in its infancy. While marketers rely on an increasing number of channels to drive their marketing objectives, they continue to use basic attribution approaches to measure cross-channel impact. Part of the problem is the deeply fragmented attribution vendor market where marketers rely on data management providers, marketing service providers, web analytics providers, attribution specialists and media buying platforms for attribution about evenly. Interestingly, the study found that only 5% of marketers rely on their bid management platform for attribution.
Organizations leverage many channels to reach and grow customers. The average marketer surveyed is using 13 channels to drive his or her marketing and media objectives. This reflects marketers’ increasingly omnichannel approach to win, serve and retain their customer base. 60% of these channels are included in marketers’ attribution measurements. Digital channels dominate those measured, taking eight of the top 10 spots. Referral marketing and mass media rounded out the top 10.
76% of marketers surveyed have moved beyond single-touch attribution, but only 11% use advanced algorithmic attribution as recommended by the study.
Additionally, many marketers are applying the attribution too narrowly. Only 24% consistently measure cross-campaign effects. Marketers may be hesitant to adopt advanced attribution approaches because they find them difficult to understand and communicate to their organizations.
Channels Used To Drive Marketing And Media Objectives, And Channels Included In Attribution Measurement (% of Respondents) | ||
Channel | Used To Drive Marketing And Media Objectives | Included In Attribution Measurement |
Email marketing | 87% | 50% |
Online display advertising | 82 | 53 |
Referral marketing | 81 | 50 |
Paid search advertising | 78 | 55 |
Mass media | 76 | 43 |
Mobile display advertising | 76 | 41 |
Search engine optimization | 75 | 46 |
Affiliate marketing | 75 | 43 |
Paid social advertising | 73 | 48 |
Behavioral targeting advertising | 72 | 43 |
Magazines or newspapers | 72 | 45 |
Online video | 71 | 45 |
Owned social media | 71 | 44 |
Retargeting | 70 | 40 |
Mobile search | 68 | 40 |
Mobile apps | 67 | 44 |
Direct mail or catalogs | 65 | 38 |
Other events | 65 | 37 |
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Kenshoo, April 2014 |
Despite the potential analytic and data challenges, only 14% are using attribution specialists. Just as many or more are turning to each of the following: data management providers (DMPs), marketing service providers (MSPs), and web analytic providers.
Only 10% of the marketers surveyed said they had been using any form of attribution for more than four years, while two-thirds (67%) have been using it for two years or less. In addition, marketers are working with new partners — 72% had implemented a new attribution solution in the past 12 months. The newness of attribution within organizations is bringing with it some challenges: Respondents in organizations with less than one year of attribution experience were significantly less satisfied in their ability to take action than those with more than one year of experience.
Marketers Use A Wide Variety Of Partners For Their Attribution Measurement Efforts | |
Vendor Used | % of Respondents |
My data management provider | 17% |
My marketing service provider | 16% |
My web analytics provider | 15% |
My attribution specialist | 14% |
My media buying platform | 14% |
My digital/direct response agency | 10% |
My tag management provider | 8% |
My bid management platform | 5% |
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Kenshoo, April 2014 |
Organizational support is the biggest hurdle preventing actionable attribution insights. Corporate marketers said their largest obstacle blocking more action on attribution results is the confidence of their colleagues. Among institutional marketers who had implemented a new result in the past 12 months, their biggest challenge was the providers’ analytic expertise and ability to build trust in the analytics.
Agency marketers have different challenges. These are the lack of an efficient process to make media changes and limits imposed by existing media contracts.
Largest Obstacles Preventing Greater Action From Your Attribution Tool (% of Respondents) | |||
| Total | Marketing Or Media Agency | Corporate Marketers |
Incorporating attribution results into media plans is cumbersome and/or a manual process | 33% | 39% | 24% |
Existing media partner or agency contracts limit changes to budgets across channels/campaigns | 32% | 34% | 29% |
Reconciling attribution results with other analyses | 32% | 31% | 33% |
Understanding how to use the results to generate new insights and actions | 29% | 27% | 33% |
Gaining confidence from colleagues and executives in the results and recommendations | 27% | 19% | 40% |
Lack of key touchpoints, channels, or media in the attributed results | 25% | 27% | 24% |
Takes too long to generate useful results and guidance | 21% | 23% | 17% |
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Kenshoo, April 2014 |
Aaron Goldman, CMO of Kenshoo, concludes by noting that “… attribution provides valuable insight into which channels have the greatest impact on any given campaign or ad… but having access to data isn’t enough… marketers need the ability to take immediate action on the insights… something many marketers struggle with...”
Please visit Kenshoo here to access the complete study.
This report should be read and acted upon by every marketer and analytics professional. The reports recommendation to use "advanced algorithmic attribution" is absolutely correct. All of the pitfalls, apprehension, distrust and fear in many cases are also correct. These are all of the reasons why BDAI was created and is forever evolving. Our attribution solution resolves all of these issues including Distrust and Fear.
1. Algorithmic: Our science is algorithmic based attribution and is best of breed created by our technology partner DMA Institute (http://www.dma-institute.com) winner of 2 Iab innovation awards.
2. Apprehension: We are turnkey from our proprietary tags that tell all to our raw and aggregated easy to read dashboard data reporting system. We are the personification of user friendly.
3. Organizational Support: Archived by testing BDAI to experience the success you will have making mid-campaign adjustment decisions in Real Time using Transparent Actionable Data.
4. Trust: Nothing to distrust data is delivered in real time and completely transparent you see every touch point of the customers digital journey. We wrote the white papers on the inadequacy of last touch attribution. Using our data correctly will guarantee a ROI lift of up to 40+ percent.
5. Fear: As your partner we will be looking out for your best interest measuring and reporting what is working and what is not. Complete, accurate detailed data in real time to enable you to take immediate action. Once or twice a week we will consult with you regarding what we are seeing in the data picture. You are never alone our team is always available to provide insights or assistance.
Jack Brown
Senior Consultant
678.371.2928
http://bdai-na.com