As the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) continues to expand in driving business growth, data literacy has become essential for showcasing its value to the C-suite. In today’s economic environment—and given the notoriously short tenures of CMOs—it is crucial to approach marketing measurement with the correct attribution data to optimize revenue performance and contribute to overall business revenue goals.
What is people-based attribution?
People-based attribution has emerged as a crucial tool for measuring marketing results. This enables marketers to understand the individual customer journey and the impact of specific marketing efforts on each customer.
Unlike traditional channel-based attribution, which assigns credit to a particular marketing channel based on the last touchpoint with which the customer interacted before making a purchase, people-based attribution looks at the entire customer journey to assign credit to each marketing effort based on each touchpoint’s influence on customer’s behavior.
What advances have we seen in people-based and multi-touch attribution?
The rise of advanced multi-touch attribution cross-platform technology, such as that from AppsFlyer, has created a unique opportunity for businesses to move toward a vision of truly holistic, people-based attribution with a single, deduplicated persona for each human customer.
However, the fragmented cross-platform ecosystem from mobile to the web has introduced new measurement challenges, making it even harder to understand a customer journey from beginning to end. Privacy policy changes from platforms and privacy laws worldwide further complicate this.
Harnessing consumer engagement data through the multi-touchpoint consumer journey and applying advanced machine learning (ML) algorithms can help understand consumer intent and shape and engage intent at scale to anticipate new opportunities for engaging customers.
How can leaders implement people-based attribution in their organization?
Adopting people-based attribution can be a critical driver of growth and engagement in providing more accurate and actionable insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, helping companies make better strategic decisions and allocate resources more effectively. By focusing on the individual customer journey, they can better understand the needs and preferences of their customers, which can both inform product development and improve customer experiences.
People-based attribution seeks to connect the different touchpoints between a business and its audience. It is driven by the understanding that people, not devices, are the common denominator between individual data points across marketing channels.
What are some leading case examples for people-based and multi-touch attribution?
Here are three recent notable examples of companies benefiting from the shift to people-based attribution models.
• Airbnb uses a people-based attribution approach to identify the most influential touchpoints for driving bookings. By analyzing the customer journey across all touchpoints, including paid search, email, social media, and referral, Airbnb was able to optimize its marketing spend and increase revenue by 300%.
• The online fashion retailer ASOS implemented a people-based attribution model to track the customer journey across devices and touchpoints. This enabled ASOS to understand the customer journey better and optimize its marketing efforts accordingly. As a result, ASOS increased its conversion rate by 22%.
• Verizon Media rolled out a multi-touch attribution feature in their Native Ad Platform UI, which allows users insights into the value of different customer touchpoints leading to a conversion.
These cases demonstrate the impressive potential of people-based attribution to drive growth and increase revenue. By understanding the customer journey across all touchpoints and optimizing marketing efforts accordingly, businesses can increase conversion rates, improve return on ad spend and drive growth.
How can leaders implement a people-based or multi-touch attribution solution?
I recommend three strategies for leaders seeking to build a strong people-based or multi-touch attribution initiative.
1. Develop a detailed customer journey map.
One major component of any such an initiative is to develop a detailed customer journey map. By analyzing how customers engage with your product at every touchpoint, you can better understand how these interactions influence their behavior. By assigning a different value to each touchpoint based on its impact on customer behavior, you can make better-informed decisions about your marketing strategy, optimize your campaigns and improve the overall customer experience.
At my edtech platform Tynker, I use customer journey maps to identify golden engagement opportunities around optimizing new customer onboarding experiences to improve customer retention.
2. Use advanced analytics tools.
To accurately track the impact of different touchpoints on customer behavior, it’s crucial to use advanced analytics tools. By leveraging machine learning algorithms and other cutting-edge technologies, you can analyze vast amounts of data and identify patterns in customer behavior that may not be immediately apparent. This information can be used to create a more accurate attribution model that considers all the factors influencing customer behavior, enabling you to allocate your marketing resources more effectively.
At Tynker, this allowed us to uncover that marketing to students and teachers was much more successful than marketing directly to parents.
3. Leverage a unified data platform.
To track the impact of different touchpoints accurately, it’s crucial to have a unified data platform that can collect data from multiple sources. A strong platform should be able to track data from all the different channels and devices that customers use to interact with your product. A unified data platform can create a more accurate attribution model that considers all the factors influencing customer behavior.
For example, suppose a customer interacts with your product on their laptop, revisits the product through their smartphone and finally makes a purchase through their tablet. In that case, a unified data platform would consider all the factors influencing the customer’s behavior across different devices and channels.
Are you a CMO seeking to implement an effective people-based or multi-touch attribution solution?
As a CMO seeking to implement an effective people-based or multi-touch attribution solution, it’s crucial to understand how customers interact with your product at every touchpoint. By developing a detailed customer journey map, using advanced analytics tools, implementing a people-based approach and leveraging a unified data platform, you can create a more accurate attribution model that considers all the factors influencing customer behavior.
This article first appeared on FORBES
