What is attribution modeling?

Attribution modeling is the creation of rules that define how credit for conversions or sales is assigned to specific marketing/customer touchpoints on conversion paths.

For any given conversion or sale, contemporary customers will interact with a half-dozen (or far more) company assets.  They may view a promoted social media post, visit the company website, return to the site weeks later and register to download a white paper, before finally responding to a company email days later and clicking an included link to make a purchase.  Depending on what is included as a touchpoint in this example, one purchase is easily 5 touchpoints or interactions.  To close the marketing loop, company analysts must attribute the conversion to one or more of the touchpoints (specifically, the company asset engaged at that touch).

If the sale is attributed to the marketing email link clicked, it is a “last touch” attribution.  If attributed to the social media promoted post, it is a “first click” attribution. Or if attributed to multiple interactions, it is a “multi-touch” attribution.  Exploring these different attribution models helps the business determine which company asset is most effective influencing conversions, I.e., which asset should be used in a particular future marketing campaign.

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