campaign attribution is broken
Post on 14-Sep-2014
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Presentation from eMetrics London providing an alternative view of Campaign Attribution and why the current popular approach can never work. All presented using football as an analogy.TRANSCRIPT
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
• @peter_oneill
• +44 7843 617 347
• www.linkedin.com/in/peteroneill
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