The ABCs of Attribution - Always Be Calculating the impact and value of finding the ultimate partner

8 Essential Tips & a Scorecard for Selecting the Ultimate Attribution Partner  

It’s been said that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation by 10 years. If that’s the case, then marketing’s development advanced at twice that rate. 

While companies buckle down and shift resources, marketers are under more pressure than ever to drive revenue and build strong return on ad spend (ROAS) through meaningful engagement with both new and existing customers. 

With marketers planting their flags as revenue generators, tracking  their impact from impression-to-purchase has become essential. We’re seeing an explosion in the marketing attribution space because of this shift, with analysts projecting a $3.6B market by 2023 – more than double the market size from 2018. 

These are the top factors brands should weigh when vetting their next strategic attribution partnership:

1. Methodology: If attribution were a physics experiment, the methodology would be the gravity influencing movement of an object. It’s the backbone of any attribution strategy. For vendors, an attribution solution is only as effective as the underlying accuracy and precision of the data and its ability to define control groups, calculate lift, and project visits.
2. Scale: Attribution doesn’t occur in a vacuum–it takes time, and large, complex data sets to be effective. The larger the scale of a vendor, the fewer limitations exist for a brand to understand the true impact of their advertising across multiple dimensions be it segments/audiences, media, location and more with statistical relevance and confidence. This is even more essential in a post iOS 14.5 world where access to critical identifiers like the IDFA requires an explicit opt-in.
3. Industry Experience: There is value in experience; expertise across industry and different types of campaigns over time leads to benchmarks and learnings that can help optimize campaigns and performance.
4. Types of Media and Partners: Every strategy is different, so it’s important that media partners work across different media types (OOH, Digital, TV, Radio, and more) for a holistic view of a campaign’s omnichannel performance and integrate seamlessly. Partnering with a measurement solution that is both omnichannel and can measure multi-touch attribution across media partners will make for seamless integration and much less work on the end of your brand.
5. Reporting: Attribution should make marketers feel smarter and more informed. Brands should look to vendors that provide real-time, actionable reporting that allows them to improve. Understanding who, when, where and why a consumer responded and leveraging that data to optimize through actionable insight helps accelerate growth and success over the long term.
6. Data: From the crumbling cookie to iOS14 and IDFA restrictions, taking an educated look at data is a critical factor separating leaders of the pack from the rest. An effective attribution leader brings data that’s third-party verified for both its precision and visits is essential.
7. Account Management: Valuable partnerships are grounded in superior customer experience. While trust is built over time, proactiveness and overall knowledge are foundational concepts that can offer a glimpse of whether a partnership will be fruitful.
8. Strategy and Roadmap: A valuable attribution partner understands where the attribution market has been and has a clear vision of where it’s going. You should be able to buy into the vision and feel confident that the provider you’re working with has future proofed their roadmap to continued effectiveness. 

When choosing a strategic attribution partner, it is always important to choose a solution that will not only meet your needs, but more importantly, help drive growth for your brand over time. Last but not least, understand the value attribution brings to the organization.  Ask your provider for case studies highlighting their value proposition and potential impact on your business and ask for testimonials and references to confirm and verify. 

To simplify the vendor-selection process, we created an attribution vendor scorecard to evaluate each vendor across these categories – and weigh your options across 74 unique data points that ladder up to these categories. 

Happy vetting!