Download Adobe – 5 Steps to Success

Five steps to success
Getting started with marketing attribution
2014
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Table of contents
02 Help your marketing budgets work harder
03 Expect the unexpected
04 Continuous refinement, continuous improvement
05 5 Steps to Success
06 Case Study Example – Live Nation
07 What can you expect to achieve?
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Help your marketing
budgets work harder
Consider the number of ways your customers interact with your brand
as part of their buying journey – through digital channels such as email
marketing, social media and online advertising, to offline media such
as print advertising, point-of-sale displays, television, radio and more.
Amongst this complex mix of marketing touch points, how do you know
which channel has the most influence on buying behaviour? Where should
you focus your marketing budgets?
Fortunately, attribution modelling now allows you to answer those
questions. Here are a few simple guidelines to help you get the most
out of your efforts.
television print advertising
point of sale
social media
online advertising
radio
email marketing
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Expect the unexpected
Marketing attribution allows you to get a complete picture of the journey
your customers take during the buying cycle, and to evaluate the influence
of each marketing interaction before conversion. This information will allow
you to optimise your marketing spend, focusing on those channels that are
proven to provide the best returns.
But where do you start? Attribution modelling doesn’t have to be
complicated. Collect data on one or two channels initially as part of a
phased strategy. Online channels are a good starting point as they are often
already tracked. The results can be surprising – previously tried and tested
media may not be as influential as expected, while lesser-valued channels
may prove to carry a lot of weight in the customer journey. Instead of
only acknowledging the ‘last-click’ in every conversion, you have a more
rounded view of marketing effectiveness.
It’s all about
the data
Include offline,
as well as online
channels
Build the
right team
CONVERSION
Don’t stop
experimenting
Get everyone
on board
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Continuous refinement,
continuous improvement
To gain a full picture of how each marketing channel influences customer
journeys and conversion rates, it’s important to continually refine your
marketing mix and evaluate the results.
Attribution modelling allows you to create ‘what if ’ scenarios that
help you to adjust channel activity and marketing tactics to improve
effectiveness. By understanding and acknowledging which channels are
the most successful, you can focus investment in the right place so you
get a better return from your budget.
Devices
Channels
TV/RADIO ADVERTISING
PRINTED MEDIA
SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING
DIRECT MAIL
WEBSITE ENGAGEMENT
AFFILIATE MARKETING
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
SEO
PAID SEARCH
EMAIL
Let’s now look at the five factors you should keep in mind to make your
marketing attribution programme a success.
Attribution model
Customer
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Five steps to success
1
It’s all about the data
Draw data about your customers
and prospects from all available
sources within the business. The
combination of web, mobile,
point-of-sale and CRM data
provides a holistic view of
how your customer behaves
and interacts with your brand,
both online and offline. To fully
understand the customer journey,
consider the full picture.
2
Build the right team
Generating meaningful and
actionable insight from available
data requires analysts. This is
becoming a core role within
marketing teams and there are
an increasing number of people
specialising in this area. Be sure to
invest in the right skills to enhance
your team.
3
Get everyone on board
Attribution may not be welcomed
internally if some teams perceive
the results to be a threat to their
channel and therefore their job.
You can promote the benefits
of attribution by focusing on
the overall results – better
conversion rates, increased sales
and recognition for the marketing
team as a whole. By removing a
focus on team silos, all marketing
touch points receive credit for
influencing buying behaviour.
4
Include offline, as well as online
channels
Email, paid search and SEO are
already top of the list of channels
that can be most easily tracked,
analysed and attributed in the
customer journey. But don’t stop
there. Every customer interaction,
whether online or offline, counts
towards a conversion. To make
your attribution model as strong as
possible, include as many sources
of data as you can.
5
Don’t stop experimenting
There is no ‘one size fits all’ when
it comes to attribution modelling,
and perfection is unlikely. The
right model for you will depend
on your goals and will rely on trial
and error to refine the marketing
mix. Don’t be afraid to keep
adapting your tactics in order
to improve your results.
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
Case study example – Live Nation
Live Nation Entertainment is the world’s leading
live entertainment and e-commerce company
comprising four market leaders: Ticketmaster.com,
Live Nation Concerts, Front Line Management
Group and Live Nation Network. Live Nation wanted
to layer its business intelligence systems with web
data to support easy querying and to power up
its social marketing activities. Integration between
Adobe products was a key selling point for Live
Nation because it meant that the company wouldn’t
have to manually pull data from different vendors,
but instead could simply plug in Adobe products to
leverage its own data stores.
Adobe advantage
Before implementing Adobe, Live Nation used
last-click attribution, but that only offered half the
story. Because 60% of orders have more than one
marketing touchpoint, to just rely on last-click
attribution ignored the impact of previous
marketing activities.
Adobe delivers the Live Nation team a more
complete picture of visitor history with algorithmic
attribution models providing multiple perspectives.
Marketers can see – and optimise for – multiple
touches. Adobe products quantitatively show the
most likely paths to purchase, enabling Live Nation
to optimise accordingly.
Live Nation was surprised to learn that its SEO
activities were yielding a return of $150 for
every dollar. Meanwhile, SEM, which is generally
considered very cost-effective, was delivering a
return of approximately 50 cents for every dollar
invested. And affiliate programmes, which seemed at
first to be just breaking even, turned out to deliver
a four-fold ROI.
Results:
•Improved attribution model allowing
the marketing budget to be more
effectively optimised
• Detailed path analysis and behaviour
of 28 million site visitors a month
•Use of cross-channel analytics helping translate
10% growth in mobile traffic to 500% growth in
sales transacted through mobile devices
•Ability to show clients the effectiveness
of features, such as an increase in conversion
from 10% to 40% with interactive seat maps
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
ADOBE ATTRIBUTION GUIDE
What can you expect to achieve?
Attribution removes the guesswork from marketing
strategy. By understanding the customer journey
throughout all marketing touch points, you can
justify your marketing spend based on real metrics.
And the model is flexible – you can adapt the
marketing mix to meet changing business needs.
Successful attribution modelling is an ever-changing
activity, allowing you to move beyond broad
generalisations about marketing performance and
better understand where your budget should be
spent for best results. Meaningful analysis is within
your reach.
Only
but of those who do
of businesses carry
out any form of
attribution
say attribution had a
positive effect on
their business
54%
89%
Call us on 01628 590300 to find
out more about attribution and how
Adobe can help.
www.adobe.com/uk/marketing
@AdobeMktgCloud
And
29%
say the impact was
major
Based on a survey
of over 700 companies and
agencies, carried out in October 2012.
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Getting started with marketing attribution – Five steps to success
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