The Case for Adoption: One Giant Step for Attribution

In the spring of 2008, years of research including but not limited to cross-site duplication, search and display synergy and navigational search culminated in the development and production of Engagement Mapping, the first fully-integrated conversion attribution technology offered by the Atlas Advertiser Suite.

Engagement Mapping provides Atlas clients with the ability to go beyond the last-ad, the single, last touchpoint in a consumer’s digital history, awarded 100% credit for guiding a consumer to purchase or commit a valued action on an advertiser’s website, a conversion. When quantifying the amount of data in a converter’s digital history that was not the last-ad, we’ve found that over 94% of touchpoints, largely constituting the upper-funnel, awareness oriented channels and sites, were ignored. Though overwhelming evidence indicates a need for a more advanced attribution model, the digital  advertising industry has yet to fully embrace the evolution beyond the last ad. The question, why?

It is a credit to agencies and advertisers alike that according to eMarketer, online ad spend has grown to well over $25B projected for 2010. Marketing teams are consistently putting together campaigns designed to reach their target audience with the right message at the right time in the right place.

These campaigns, often at the onset, include rich media and video in addition to sites varying from large portals to networks as well as search. However, after a period of time these campaigns are optimized under the last-ad microscope and significant elements of the marketing campaign dissipate into those sites or placements that are effectively closing the deal, reaching the consumer at the very last touchpoint prior to purchase. In fact, marketers have operationalized this process with such high efficiency that the consideration time for touchpoints within a converter’s digital history has been drastically shortened to the detriment of upper funnel initiatives.

To further complicate matters, there are a significant number of technology solutions available in market today yet few are fully scalable, built into existing reporting systems and offer rule or statistical-based capabilities to evaluate a converter’s digital history. In the digital age where the beauty rests in the fact that most, if not all, exposures & interactions can be tracked, the irony of evaluating on a single metric can prove troublesome. There is a prevalence of analytic solutions available however marketers desire a single number, metric or KPI that one can point to in determining the value of purchased media. Moreover, any new metric is required to submit to a burden of proof, that is, to be statistically more valid than the existing, in this case the last ad, even though inherently the current metric itself is flawed.

There’s no shortage of agencies and advertisers who are innovating beyond the last ad. In fact, over 400 Atlas clients have activated Engagement Mapping and are using it to effectively review & optimize their campaigns. Requests & delivery of analyses built as the foundation of & to support Engagement Mapping, cross-channel synergies, keyword paths and campaign duplication are at a fever pitch.

However, there is still much to be accomplished. The current technology and processes built by marketers have largely revolved around the last ad concept. Media campaigns have considerably been contracted to those few sites capable of mass reach to consumers already in-market, at the bottom of the funnel. Consideration windows have been significantly shortened. Standards have yet to arrive and replace that of the last ad. Education of strategists as well as media teams is needed.

The hurdles are high.

Yet, there are answers. If you are interested in this topic in addition to how to close the gap between data analysis and business action, please join me at 212 Ad Club’s event on analytics Tuesday, June 15^th at 6pm. More information & registration can be found at http://www.212nyc.org/events/1422.cfm.

Thank you,

Morris Martin

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