MULTI-TOUCH ATTRIBUTION: WHEN TO USE MTA?

How do you determine the value of each touchpoint along the consumer journey when analysing your campaigns? After all, determining what caused a conversion is rarely as straightforward as examining the last action a consumer took prior to clicking "buy."

This is the goal of Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA). However, what appears to be a straightforward task is anything but. Numerous marketers – even those with years of experience – can become perplexed when attempting to understand precisely what MTA can and cannot do.

INTRODUCTION TO MULTI-TOUCH ATTRIBUTION:

Using multi-touch attribution, marketers can determine how each touchpoint contributes to the overall conversion rate, and thus the value of each touchpoint.

As an illustration, consider a consumer who is considering purchasing a new pair of shoes. Following some research, they are targeted by Nike advertisements. They first encounter a display advertisement, which they ignore. Following that, they see a native advertisement on their Instagram feed that piques their interest and directs them back to the Nike website. Finally, they receive an email with a promotional offer and a discount code that prompts them to make a purchase.

Each of these advertisements represents a stage in the buyer's journey. Multi-touch attribution enables marketers to attribute a sale to both the native ad and the email campaign. They can then conclude that the display advertisement was ineffective and abandon that tactic.

There are several multi-touch attribution models available to marketers that consider user-level data, i.e., the impact of user-level events (clicks, impressions) on the ultimate goal. Each of these models has a unique way of quantifying ad effectiveness.

The Difference Between Multi-Touch Attribution vs. First-Touch:

The first-touch attribution model assigns complete credit for sales to the first marketing touchpoint encountered prior to a conversion. Certain marketers will use this to demonstrate how their top-of-funnel marketing materials increased initial awareness, ultimately resulting in a sale.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-click ad on paid search, that touchpoint would receive full credit, even if the customer interacted with your business across tens or hundreds of touchpoints. This means that your product pages, television advertisements, events, and even your organization's salespeople are not credited with any conversions.

While first-touch attribution enables marketers to determine which touchpoints are most effective at the start of a customer's journey, it ignores the middle and end. As a result, first-touch attribution is typically reserved for specialised situations.

The Difference Between Multi-Touch Attribution vs. Last-Touch Attribution:

This model attributes complete sales credit to the final marketing touchpoint encountered prior to conversion. Last-touch attribution is frequently used by marketers who want to focus exclusively on the factors that contributed to conversions, rather than on awareness or nurturing.

Consider a consumer who clicked on a paid advertisement for your product, read the product page, and watched several television advertisements during a week. They didn't decide to purchase your product, however, until they saw an eye-catching billboard on their way to the mall. Under this model, the billboard would receive complete credit - but when the buyer's journey is viewed holistically, it's clear that the billboard was simply building on previous interactions.

Although last-touch attribution is more frequently used than first-touch attribution, it shares many of the same pitfalls. How about your initial point of contact? What about the touchpoints in between? Regrettably, every other touchpoint is irrelevant to the sale when using a last-touch attribution model.

Benefits of Multi-Touch Attribution:

Multi-touch attribution models have become critical for marketers, particularly those tasked with determining the effectiveness of digital campaigns. This is because they provide a more detailed, individual-level view than more aggregated methods such as media mix modelling.

One of the primary benefits of multi-touch attribution is the visibility it provides into the success of touchpoints throughout the customer journey. This is critical, as consumers have honed their ability to ignore marketing messages. Marketers must leverage data-driven marketing to tailor their messaging to reach consumers on the most appropriate channel at the most appropriate time. This is made possible by the granular data provided by multi-touch attribution, which enables marketers to identify audiences across channels and ascertain their specific marketing desires.

Along with assisting marketers in improving the consumer experience, multi-touch attribution enables marketers to maximise their marketing ROI by illuminating where spend is most and least effective. Additionally, this can aid in shortening sales cycles by engaging consumers with fewer but more effective marketing messages.

Not all attribution models are multi-touch, as should be noted. Only models that take into account multiple touchpoints are referred to as multi-touch. Single-touch attribution models, such as the first and last touch models, are examples. The reason for this is that they only consider the first or last touchpoint that was encountered before a conversion, rather than the entire sales cycle.

When to Use Multi-Touch Attribution?:

Multi-touch attribution models should be used for campaigns with a digital component, such as email or online paid to advertise, that spans multiple channels and devices, as long as marketers can attribute a marketing event to an individual. MTA insights can also be applied to automation platforms that handle tasks like email deployment.

Finally, MTA data is critical for optimising and A/B testing. This data reveals which messages resonate with consumers on which channels and at which times, allowing marketers to tailor campaigns and messaging to those preferences.

Last but not the least, Multi-Touch Attribution Enables Flexibility:

As markets continue to evolve and consumer expectations adjust to a new normal, marketing teams will need to be adaptable. Multi-touch attribution enables flexibility by providing marketers with a more detailed understanding of which components of their initiatives are working and which are not. With complete visibility into each touchpoint along the customer journey, teams can make data-driven marketing campaign decisions.

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