Marketers are increasingly held accountable for their department’s impact on the bottom line. Making the shift from wild guesses to controlled performance measurement is a great leap forward, or rather, it’s just five small steps. Here’s how to get started with marketing attribution.

Learning to spend both halves effectively

Measuring marketing performance has been a challenge for decades. Marketers have been saying they don’t know which half of their budget is wasted because they could get away with it. Until now. Whoever is still saying that in 2020 just doesn’t know the marvelous marketing attribution tools available today.

With attribution tools improving at record pace, marketers are increasingly held responsible for producing measurable results. Being able to improve marketing performance is now less about creativity, and more about creating accountability.

But although the required capabilities of ‘the future marketer’ are clear, few marketers report their attribution skills are sufficient, according to this 2017 report.

• 87% of marketers consider their ability to measure and analyze marketing performance and impact to be “average” at best.
• 72% want more transparency on the impact of their marketing initiatives on pipeline and revenue.

This article lists 5 things you can do to go from being part of the 87% with a self-reported questionable ability to attribute marketing activities, to joining the 13% of marketers that truly master their marketing attribution.

Hard numbers, soft landing

The famous Mad Men used to be able to say pretty much anything, as long as their facial expression was showing confidence. A few short years from now, marketers won’t be allowed to say anything… if it isn’t backed up by hard numbers.

It’s a world of difference, but the transition can be a lot smoother than you might expect. Getting started with marketing attribution can be done in phases. It’s possible to slowly work your way up to being able to assign dollars earned to a particular landing page call-to-action.

5 Steps to getting started with marketing attribution 

Here are the 5 things you need to do, to make your marketing organization future proof.

1. Install the LeadsRx Universal Tracking Pixel

To be able to improve anything for the future, you need to know what its current status is. To improve the revenue of your e-business, you need to map the buying behavior of current customers. Illuminate the customer journey by installing one single tracking pixel. If you install the LeadsRx application, the Pixel will be installed automatically.

2. Set up conversion points

When you’re using Shopify, LeadsRx will automatically pick sales as a conversion point. If you’re running another store or website, let us know which touchpoints you’d like to count as a conversion. A conversion could be an information request, a newsletter subscription, a product trial or a 10th product purchase. Whatever you think is a significant step in the customer journey can be set up as a conversion point. 

3. Now, don’t do anything. Sit back and be amazed.

The Universal Tracking Pixel does pretty much all the work you thought you needed to do manually. Within just a few days of collecting data, the LeadsRx application will automatically discover existing ad campaigns, social referrals and SEO performance by monitoring how individuals are reaching your website. You’ll be able to see how individuals are behaving throughout the journey, on all channels, using any device. 

4. Play around with different attribution models

Depending on your marketing goals and the channels you’re using, see which attribution model gives you the best insights. When you just want to measure the impact of a simple landing page, go Last-Touch. Or go for an Algorithmic Data-Driven Multi-Touch Model, not just to sound on top of your game during meetings, but also to gain a realistic view on which marketing initiatives are most effective. 

5. Calculate marketing ROI for all touchpoints 

Now you’ve familiarized yourself with marketing attribution, it’s time to relate all marketing activity to marketing investments and their influence on the bottom line. Marketing attribution is about being able to spend your budget as wisely as possible.

It’s all too common for marketers to just look at the highest numbers for website views or ads clicked. But that only one part of the ROI equation. What you really want to know is the ‘cost per conversion’, so you’ll know where to invest you next 10k of marketing budget to maximize commercial impact.

Now it is your turn

Well, those 5 points weren’t rocket science, were they? Now it’s your turn to take the first steps into marketing attribution, and to make the numbers of your marketing strategy really add up.