One of the key challenges marketers face nowadays is how to measure the effectiveness of the multitude of marketing activities consumers are exposed to? This is even more important during the economic turmoil such as the one caused by the COVID-19. In those times, marketers have to be even more efficient and constantly prove the ROI of their activities as the budgets are stricter and pressure is higher.

This mission of achieving clear attribution is one of the reasons why marketers have been turning more and more towards online activities. Digital advertising promises full transparency and accountability, but contrary to common belief, surveys show that marketers are becoming less confident about their digital ROI. Why is that? One of the reasons is that many commonly used digital attribution methods simply don’t provide the full picture. Among them, “last click”, by far the most commonly used one, is actually also the most flawed one. Why is it used then? Because it’s easy to use, but it discards all the activities that led to the final activity. This is especially important in the case of also using offline advertising, but even when talking about online-only, it overrates the impact of certain activities (in our study by as much as 30%).

What are the other options for marketers then? There are a couple of them that provide a more precise look at attribution, but the ones that are the closest to the full picture involve cooperation between humans and AI. That way you can not only understand the full ROI, but also predict the impact of your activities. Statistical modeling makes it possible to account for the impact of online activities and offline activity, such as mass advertising, price promotions, or competitor activity. For smaller advertisers that focus on online marketing, the impact of these other activities may be small, but for big brands, with a broader marketing mix, it would be patently negligent to analyze the digital world and ignore the physical one. These activities often affect each other, so to uncover their full ROI, you need to understand indirect effects.

Download this whitepaper to learn about:

• What makes digital attribution so special?
  
• The pros and cons of different methods tackling the attribution challenge
  
• Six steps marketers should follow to improve their marketing effectiveness