Attribution: the “A” word that everyone is talking about.  From Gartner to Forester to most agencies, marketing attribution is one of most covered predictions for success in 2017.

The current state of attribution

For most marketers, marketing attribution is not a new concept, but instead is a concept that has only been available to large enterprises spending $10M a year or more on advertising.  The major players in the space have focused on the top 2% of companies and thus have priced out 98% of the market.  We will review a couple of items on how to get started in attribution if you’re one of the lucky 2%.

Onboarding

If you’re in that 2% category, getting started with attribution can easily take anywhere from one to three months.  This is time spent bringing in consultants to look at your current business, digging into data, tagging marketing programs, meeting with the C-Suite on KPIs, etc.  This is valuable time that could otherwise be used to start tracking important attribution data… and customers are paying for this onboarding process.

Pricing

Pricing for attribution software has been set at a premium, typically ranging from $5k – $20k a month, depending on data volumes, strategic importance, and other factors. This means attribution hasn’t been accessible to most businesses out there, and only large enterprises spending tens-of-millions of dollars a year are utilizing it.  Attribution software is a large investment, and budgeting and getting approval to purchase it takes months and endless red tape internally.  Proving ROI for the finance department is a stumbling block as the up-front investment is extremely large.

Consulting

Currently, attribution being a complicated and somewhat veiled approach that almost always requires consulting to make sense of results.  Most current marketing attribution software is developed and geared toward data scientists and not marketers, and, some attribution providers charge not only for the software but also the consulting that goes along with it.

2017 will usher in an easier, more cost effective and more mainstream use of attribution software!

Onboarding

Onboarding is now as simple as adding a small snippet of code like Google Analytics.  If you have a tag manager, you could be collecting data and seeing marketing attribution models in less than a day.  What was once a very IT-labor intensive onboarding process is now a copy and paste by any marketer. With a Universal Conversion Tracking Pixel, you’ll have all online and offline channels tracking in minutes.

Pricing

2017 will see the rise in SaaS model attribution apps which means pricing will be 5x to 10x less than the current offerings.  Software solutions will be priced based off tracking events, which means companies of any size can now implement attribution and optimize their budgets no matter if they’re a startup or a billion-dollar global business.

Consulting

The hefty consulting fees collected by many vendors today will wash away as pure-play SaaS vendor companies create easy and intuitive dashboards.  Consultants will be replaced by Customer Success Managers, and in true partnership style, companies can now rely on these new players to help them adopt and excel in using attribution to optimize their budgets.

In closing, attribution will be on the top of most marketer’s list, and LeadsRX is already leading the way for mainstream adoption.  With almost 7,000 accounts now using LeadsRX, companies of all sizes are realizing the benefits of marketing attribution.