The other day, however, was one of those times that I forgot my phone. I still wanted some tunes so I switched over to the FM dial. What I immediately noticed wasn’t the music, but the static that inevitably occurs as I drove in and out of signal contact. In the past, that static wouldn’t have bothered me so much. It seemed normal. But after listening to pristine audio for so long from my i-devices, it really stuck out. And it bothered me.

Retail marketers will load up the mailboxes with catalogs. And the savvy marketers with a mobile strategy are messaging right to the digital device. But how do you know these channels are working? I mean, how do you really know?

Then, because of my day job in B2B marketing, I got to thinking that all that static – all that loss of signal – is analogous to how many marketers approach campaign measurement. They are losing the signal from the time a customer receives an offer to the time they convert and take action.  Email marketers will send numerous email campaign deployments to their customers. Retail marketers will load up the mailboxes with catalogs. And the savvy marketers with a mobile strategy are messaging right to the digital device. But how do you know these channels are working? I mean, how do you really know? Sure, a customer who clicks through an email and immediately makes a purchase can be tracked. A direct mail responder might provide the keycode from the back of the catalog if you’re lucky. But what percent of customers actually provide you with all of that valuable insight regarding how they were promoted to prior to making a purchase? You guessed it. None.

The path to purchase is non-linear. You have probably heard assertions that the marketing funnel is dead. At the very least, it’s infinitely complex. Customers are crossing channels and making purchases in places they weren’t originally promoted to. And the limited ways in which they identify themselves is a real challenge to marketers. To solve for this you need a strategy for measurement that maintains the traceability of a customer from one channel to the next. You need this in order to maintain a clear signal and reduce the static in your measurement efforts. There are three questions you should ask yourself about your attribution methodology:

1. Does it allow me to truly recognize customers across channels, regardless of how they were promoted to, or how they responded?
2. Does it take into account actual promotional campaign data, as well as all response transaction data, regardless of channel, so that you can accurately measure at the customer level?
3. Does it allow you to quantify the contributions that each channel has on one another and on actual purchases made and identify areas of highest ROI?

If you answered no to any of these questions, you may be living with static and not even realizing it. And that’s just noisy.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to reduce the static, visit our website for more on response attribution.

Response attribution

One of the biggest challenges facing marketers in today’s complex multi-channel world is determining which marketing programs are generating the biggest returns and which initiatives are not performing. Being successful requires a holistic and integrated approach to response attribution ¾ one that is based on a sound strategy and effective execution based on the company’s level of marketing sophistication.

Developing a strategy

Marketers need to think of three key things when contemplating response attribution and marketing cross-channel analysis:

1. Measure the ecosystem, not the event. Today’s complex marketing environment means that by nature, a customer or a prospect receives multiple marketing touches during the purchase cycle. Attributing 100% of a response, or a purchase, to a single event does not tell the whole story. Measure the entire series of events that drove that customer to purchase, not just the last touch.
2. Execute holdout tests. In order to truly understand the impact of withholding a marketing channel, marketers need to measure the lift that the channel provides to the marketing ecosystem. Do hold-outs and control groups consistently to make a properly informed decision.
3. Don’t listen to the pundits. Every company’s data is unique. There are tons of technorati, digerati and social media elite that depict a particular marketing channel as dead or dying and being replaced by another. That statement is only true if the data says it is true. Listen to the customer and how he or she interacts with your brand, and then make an informed decision.

Pre-order The 2012 Digital Marketer report and be one of the first to receive it this April. In it we’ll continue the response attribution conversation including how to effectively execute the strategy.