Do You Have a Marketing Attribution Problem?

On a recent webinar, Rob Bronson from Forrester Research pointed out that 45% of Big Data implementations are in marketing.  One of the use cases we most hear about for customers is the need to move from single-touch attribution methods like last-click and first-click to multi-channel, multi-touch attribution.  Today we announced an extension of our Digital Marketing Solutions to deliver multi-touch attribution. 

On a recent webinar, Rob Bronson from Forrester Research pointed out that 45% of Big Data implementations are in marketing.  One of the use cases we most hear about for customers is the need to move from single-touch attribution methods like last-click and first-click to multi-channel, multi-touch attribution.  Today we announced an extension of our Digital Marketing Solutions to deliver multi-touch attribution. 

When I speak with customers about moving to multi-touch attribution it feels like hearing about HDTV for the first time.   More clarity, more detail, and a richer experience that is more like the real-life experience of consumers.  So, multi-touch attribution is basically the HD equivalent of single-touch attribution.

What’s different?  First of all, consumers interact across many touch-points, social, mobile, search, websites as well as offline channels.  Most existing attribution solutions look at multiple touch-points within a single channel, like an ad network or web visitors.  With a Big Data Analytics approach it is easier to blend more channels into the mix and find customer connections.

This is critical today, because it better reflects the customer journey.   To be customer-centric, it is critical to be able to look at your brand through the eyes of the consumer.  A few years ago, this was impossible or at least difficult and expensive.  Now Big Data marketing analytics makes it possible to see the multi-channel journeys with incredible clarity.

As consumers dynamically adopt new technologies, keeping up with them is one of today’s marketers biggest challenges.  To do that, you can’t be stuck in legacy single-touch or annual reviews of attribution.  Big Data Analytics makes it possible to discover new patterns, test new programs and iterate to optimize in the time scales that the market demands.

An additional value is that Big Data Analytics can deliver a 3D-type enhancement to attribution.  Teradata Aster gives you the ability to use different measures for each touch point so you can use uniform, variable or exponential weightings in your model in order to test and iterate to get the right approach for your business.

Another big difference using Teradata Aster to analyze attribution is to be able to link to additional data in a Teradata Data Warehouse to include Revenue, Profit and Lifetime Value which extends attribution beyond conversion to real bottom-line performance.

Lastly, the ability to integrate into the Aprimo marketing platform makes this insight actionable.   With Aster and Aprimo being part of Teradata, it becomes possible to operationalize your Big Data Analytics more effectively.

The infographic above highlights why some marketers might feel like they have an attribution problem.  You can download a PDF of it here. On the same page, you will also find a white paper we created with Aprimo to go into more detail around what attribution looks like today, and an On-Demand webinar with Forrester and Razorfish that looks at attribution in some depth.  For those who want to read more, check out an addition to this Delicious stack.

So my question for this post is – Do you have an attribution problem?  And if so, how can having multi-touch, multi-channel attribution model make it better?