campaign attribution is broken

Campaign Attribution is Broken

So how do we maximise ROI on marketing spend?

Who am I? G’day, I’m Peter... I am Australian – with a strong aussie accent Founder of L3 Analytics Also Founder of MeasureCamp

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I intend to cover 4 areas*

1. Review visitor behaviour & touch points How campaign attribution treats them

2. My debate with campaign attribution fans

3. Always focus on the business questions

4. My recommended approaches**

* Using an extended version of Matthew Tod’s football (soccer) analogy to make my points

** I don’t have a case study to prove these work ***

*** Yet...

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VISITOR BEHAVIOUR

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The Field of Play

RIO (location of the game)

Who gets the credit for a goal (conversion)?

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1. Last Click Attribution

Final touch scores goal & gets all credit

RIO (location of the game)

Who gets the credit for a goal (conversion)? The “Goal Scorer”

Last click attribution

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2. First Click / Weighted Attribution Models

Midfield play set up the goal for the striker

RIO

Multiple players contributed to the goal & may deserve some credit

Who gets the credit? The “Goal Scorer”

Last click attribution Midfield passes

First click / weighted attribution / descending attribution / whatever allows you to pick the winner...

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3. Ad Tracking Models

Ad tracking networks don’t capture all online touch points

RIO

Who gets the credit? The “Goal Scorer”

Last click attribution Midfield passes

First click / weighted attribution / descending attribution / whatever allows you to pick the winner...

Ignoring players An issue with traditional ad tracking tools

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4. Multiple Devices

Play started on the other side of the pitch & these players deserve credit too

RIO Home (computer)

Work (or smart phone, tablet, etc)

Who gets the credit? The “Goal Scorer”

Last click attribution Midfield passes

First click / weighted attribution / descending attribution / whatever allows you to pick the winner...

Ignoring players An issue with traditional ad tracking tools

Initiators of the passage of play You simply can’t ignore the issue of multiple

devices

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5. Offline Touch Points

Ball forced out by defender & other players provided alternative attacking options – also deserve credit

RIO

Who gets the credit? The “Goal Scorer”

Last click attribution Midfield passes

First click / weighted attribution / descending attribution / whatever allows you to pick the winner...

Ignoring players An issue with traditional ad tracking tools

Initiators of the passage of play You simply can’t ignore the issue of multiple

devices Defenders caused the error & ran in support

Offline touch points can’t be captured in any tool, however powerful (or big the data is)

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Let’s look at a scenario

Nine varied answers, most very precise Lets have a flick through

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http://blog.minethatdata.com/2012/10/your-opinion-wanted-attribution.html

Kevin Hillstrom (MineThatData) wrote this scenario & asked – How should this purchase be attributed?

THE DEBATE

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Defining the Debate Campaign attribution tools only capture a part

of the visitor journey All, half, most, a minority of the journey – it

depends... If all visitors login, you will get more (multiple

devices) But it is just not possible to get the full

visitor journey, however powerful (expensive) the tool is or how big the data is

Let’s clarify what I believe the debate should be

“Is the data being captured sufficient to provide the intelligence for informed business decisions?”

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Current Majority Opinion

In sporting terms“Point to the Scoreboard”

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Invest in the right tools & throw enough resources at the problem – and it will can be solved!!

This is Digital Analytics – we work with the data we have

Image from SmartInsights blog

Image from Adobe SiteCatalyst blog

Quotes from Tagman case study

My Viewpoint - No This is not a sampling size issue

e.g. We don’t have 100% accuracy but we can use the trends

It is incomplete data Scale of the problem is unknown Data available can be misleading Risk of wrong decisions is too large Paul Postance: “it could be done better” is not

an insult. It’s a mindset to make things better. Change the conversation from which model is

most accurate to how to optimise spend

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BUSINESS QUESTIONS

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What do we really need to know? Do we really need campaign attribution models?

No – they are simply the most obvious solution to the business problem

Let’s focus on the business problems, not the technology

There are three business intelligence requirements...

1. What do I report to the business?2. How much do I pay agencies for the last

period?3. How do I optimise future marketing spend?

Why hunt for a single solution – use the best approach to answer each requirement

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A 4th Question – from the CEO

Did we win?

RIO ROI (only location they care about)

RECOMMENDED APPROACHES

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Business Performance reporting Pick a single approach & stick to it

I don’t care which (last click is simplest) What is important is that

The business understands the approach A change in performance can be easily identified

and reacted to!!

Football analogy – who scored the goals

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Evaluate Agency Performance Define business objective for each campaign

Is it awareness, research, conversion, etc Define what success looks like

KPIs & targets Agree payment on this basis Football analogy – performance based

payments Goals, tackles, minutes played, crosses, accurate

crosses Business

Impressions, TVRs, visits, non bounce visits, visits that create a basket, leads, sales, increase in NPS

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Don’t say this can’t be done...

Not saying it would be easy But wouldn’t a campaign

equivalent of this be incredibly useful/actionable?

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Optimise Marketing Spend Remind me – how do we optimise again?

Objectives | Evaluation | Hypothesis | Test Football analogy – simultaneous games

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Optimise Marketing Spend Business equivalent – test campaigns How to test campaigns

Different campaigns in different geographical regions

Hold out tests Switch off/on keywords Pick similar trending products & promote half Measure impact from offline on online & vice versa

Learn what impact of campaign really is Optimise spend using these learnings

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HAVE I CONVINCED ANYONE???

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Summary Campaign attribution is broken

Simply can’t capture all touch points Instead of wasting money on impossible,

invest resources in the difficult Focus on the real business intelligence

requirements Be consistent in internal reporting Evaluate performance against predefined

objectives & targets specific to campaign Test to discover what works best Adjust spend to maximise profitability

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THANK YOU

I can be found at

• peteroneill@l3analytics.com

• @peter_oneill

• +44 7843 617 347

• www.linkedin.com/in/peteroneill

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