• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 16, 2020

Revenue attribution remains one of the trickiest chores in marketing. But companies are getting their arms around it, according to Revenue Attribution Outlook, a study by Ascend2. 

Of the brands polled, 44% have a measureable strategy in place and 17% are rolling one out.

Moreover, 23% are planning for a strategy in the future, and only 14% have no such plans. 

Thus, attribution budgets are rising — 59% are planning to boost them, 25% significantly so and 23% moderately.

Another 31% say their budget is staying the same, and 10% are reducing them, 2% significantly.

Of those that have a strategy, 42% rate themselves as very successful or best in class, and 55% say they are somewhat effective at it. Only 3% admit they are ineffective. 

And it’s worth it. The benefits include: 

• Ability to make better decisions — 59%
• Marketing and sales alignment — 43% 
• Increased campaign effectiveness — 37%
• Increased channel effectiveness — 32% 
• Increased marketing budget — 30%
• Attribution of ROI to marketing — 29%
• Executive buy-in/support — 22% 

Yet another benefit is elimination of friction between sales and marketing — 79% of the respondents agree this is true, 34% strongly. Only 17% are neutral, and a mere 2% disagree.   

But there are several challenges, including: 

• Data quality — 42%
• Analyzing marketing impact at each buyer stage — 40%
• Obtaining budget and staff — 36% 
• Applying attribution technology — 31% 
• Defining an attribution strategy — 30%
• Buy-in across organization — 26%
• Data silos (consolidating data sources) — 26 
• Analyzing campaigns by channel — 23%

Happily, email ranks near the bottom when it comes to difficulty in attributing marketing results:

• Social media marketing — 47% 
• Content marketing — 40%
• Display advertising — 38%
• Video marketing — 35%
• Email marketing — 33% 
• Paid search — 25% 
• SEO — 21% 

Who is responsible for executing an attribution strategy? The departments are:

• Marketing — 62%
• Sales — 47% 
• Executive/board of directors — 39%
• IT—36%
• Finance — 36%
• Customer service — 33%
• Operations — 32% 
• Product — 29%

Only 7% of firms rely exclusively on outside resources to execute their attribution strategy. Instead, 63% use a combination of in-house and outsourced resources, and 30% use in-house only. 

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 272 firms. Of these, 32% are B2B, 41% B2C and 27% are a combination of both.