Creating A Successful Ad Attribution Model

Alex Becker CEO/Founder of HYROS

Creating A Successful Ad Attribution Model

Alex Becker CEO/Founder of HYROS

What’s up, Hyrolian? It’s time for another blog with Becker. Once again, we’re talking about the good ol’ ad attribution model. Please. Save your applause. I already know you’re incredibly excited, but try to contain yourself, okay?

It’s time for you to create a successful ad attribution model. Let’s get to it.

Alrighty. First things first. We’ve got to talk about why it’s important to build a successful attribution model.

The Importance of a Successful Ad Attribution Model

I’ve got a question for you. Can you tell me the exact marketing strategy you used or the path most followed by customers that leads to your highest number of conversions?

Think about that for a minute. Are you certain you know how you’re getting your customers to make that decision to engage and make a purchase?

If you do a little bit of research, you will probably notice multiple strategies and channels used by marketers in their campaigns … all sorts of tactics to draw customers in and entice them to convert.

Marketing is not like a Bob Ross painting. It’s not full of happy little accidents. It takes thoughtful strategy and consistent attention. It means rolling with the punches and adapting to trends, seasons, and changes in the political climate.

And it is absolutely crucial that the person or people who work on your marketing and advertising are able to distinguish those strategies and channels that are bringing in solid customers from those strategies and channels that are dead ends.

You can’t ever forget that marketing goes hand in hand with sales. If your marketing isn’t eventually bringing in more sales, then it isn’t working. You need to adjust. Sometimes you have to scrap the whole thing and start over to find a plan that works.

Aaaand that’s why creating a successful ad attribution model needs your full attention. When you have an ad attribution model that works, you figure out which ads and avenues are working, and which ones aren’t, and you stop throwing good money after bum decisions.

You need an ad attribution model that fits your specific needs for your business. And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell you about today.

Ad Attribution Model Explained

Simply put, ad attribution is the process used by businesses to take a deeper look at marketing and ad campaigns so they can determine which pieces of their strategy are directly affecting the conversion journey. Marketers are finding out what led people to make their purchases.

Having a good model in place allows you to assess every single touchpoint throughout your sales funnel. You can begin to trace steps along the customer’s path to conversion.

Calculating Your ROI (return on investment)

Creating your ad attribution model and putting it to use will enable your marketing team to stop making educated guesses and start making educated decisions about what strategies need more attention and which ones should be taken off the table, so to speak.

By doing this consistently in your marketing, you should experience a decrease in your ad spend while simultaneously noticing a lift in your ROI. How nice would that be?! If your marketing budget is already tight and unbending, you need every penny you spend to make a difference for the bottom line.

The Types of Ad Attribution Models

You can divide ad attribution models into several different categories. Some categories are focused on just one touchpoint while others focus on multiple touchpoints.

Alrighty. Let’s get into it.

First Touch or First Click Attribution Model. You guessed it. This is one of those single touchpoint attribution models. It will indicate exactly which ad channel is responsible for causing a potential user to engage with your web content that first time. You may have done this or noticed businesses using this when a marketing campaign to promote the brand is about to hit the virtual streets.

Last Touch or Last Click Attribution Model. Yep. It’s another single touchpoint attribution model. The motto for last-touch attribution models is basically “saving the best for last.” This model gives every shred of conversion credit to the very last touchpoint the customer engaged with prior to the purchase.

*Keep in mind that both of those ad attribution models place their sole focus on one touchpoint. These models discount every other interaction experienced by the customer on their journey to conversion. No other factors are taken into consideration as playing a part in the conversion.

U-shaped Attribution Model. Gee, I wonder how these points are distributed … Could it be in a U-shape? Ding, ding, ding! Right you are! But seriously, conversion credit is determined by where the touchpoint falls along this U-shaped journey. The first touch and last touch are given equal credit at about forty percent for a total of eighty percent. The remaining twenty percent is divided among all the other touchpoints that fall between those. If every lead takes the same conversion journey, this can work. If you look up the stats on this likelihood, you’ll see they are just a tad underwhelming.

Linear Attribution Model. This is another ad attribution model that takes multiple touchpoints into account. Rather than giving all of the credit to the first or last touchpoint, the linear attribution model is more into equal rights for all touchpoints. Yep. Every touchpoint gets equal credit for the journey to conversion. Try finding the most influential channel in this everybody-gets-a-trophy model! Not gonna happen.

Time-decay Attribution Model. This model is kind of like the linear attribution model in that it divides credit among the touchpoints. But unlike the linear model, the time-decay model does not distribute that credit evenly. In the time-decay attribution model, more credit is given to the touchpoints that are closer to the finish line in the race to conversion. It pretty much means that the touchpoints at the bottom of the sales funnel are considered more important than those touchpoints at the beginning.

Lead-Conversion Touch Attribution Model. Just based on the fact that the words “lead conversion” are in the title of this model should be a clue that marketers like to use this puppy. It seems to be the most popular ad attribution model because it indicates the channels (yes, multiple touchpoints) that are actually driving people to your website and turning them into qualified leads. The key words there being “qualified leads.” The brass ring of businesses. You need good leads to get those much-needed customers.

Customized or Algorithmic Attribution Model. You guessed it. This attribution model is totally customizable. You’re a genius. As you can probably guess, people like this model because it can be designed to fit your specific business. It takes into account your target audience’s persona and their path to conversion plus all the data from the previously launched ad campaigns. You can choose where you give conversion credit.

Okay, so, now that you know all those fancy schmancy ad attribution models, it’s time to do what we came here for. Let’s talk about how you can pick one that will work best for you and what it takes to build it.

Picking the Best Ad Attribution Model and Building It Out

Examine Your Marketing Strategy from Front to Back

The first thing you need to do is to organize an audit of every single marketing channel and ad campaign. Take a look at what you find from the audit so you can accurately view each touch point throughout the sales funnel.

After you do this, you should be able to get a grip on whether or not you need a custom attribution model or not. If you need to develop a custom ad attribution model, then it means you’ll be building that baby from the ground up. It was not cheap. Be certain that whatever model you build that your money is well spent.

How do you know if you need a custom attribution model?

Your stakeholders expect detailed feedback and reporting on every single touchpoint and how each of those plays a part in sales and return on investment
You have several offline and online ad channels
You’ve already attempted to use other ad attribution models and they flopped
You have the bandwidth in your budget and a large team of marketing professionals to work with

Establish Well-Defined Goals

After you figure out which attribution model will work best for your business, it’s time to pick what your goal will be for using it. Without a well-defined goal, you’ll be diving in blind. Don’t do that. Define your goal so that your marketing people know where to focus their energy in order to achieve that goal with the chosen ad attribution model.

It’s this established goal that will then determine which metrics can be used as a gauge for measuring when and if corrections should be made to the marketing strategy.

Plot the Customer’s Journey

The customer’s journey is key to arriving at the desired destination of conversion. It’s this very same journey that acts as the game plan for the ad attribution model of your choosing. It will serve as a means to figure out which ad channels you need to pay attention to.

This game plan can then be used to designate categories for every touchpoint and their influence on the customer’s decision to make a purchase.

Integration of Lead Scoring

This step is critical for conversion because if you don’t have legit leads, you don’t have sales and you’re basically dead in the water. Lead scoring is the act of finding those legit leads that will convert into paying customers. After determining the legit leads, you should be able to see which touchpoints were hit on the road to conversion.

Spend Your Time and Money on Good Tools

Yep. You don’t have to be a one-man band when it comes to having a successful ad attribution model. Get yourself some tools that will help you because they specialize in tracking and monitoring all those bits of data that can be gathered from every touchpoint. The right tool will gather data throughout the conversion journey in each of the marketing channels. A good tool will come with really useful reports for you to have a tangible way to visualize what is happening with your ads.

Tailor Your Ad Attribution Report

Use whatever tool you choose to create a specifically tailored ad attribution report that is built around the touchpoints and values that you have decided to focus on. The right tool should enable you to generate reports on a set schedule. You can then set team meetings knowing you can share the information from the report and discuss the progress and efficacy of your campaign/strategy.

Keep Testing and Be Flexible

As the economy changes and people’s needs fluctuate, you have to be ready, willing, and able to roll with the punches and adjust accordingly. This also means that you need to keep running tests to see how every marketing channel is performing for you. You can’t check on it once and be done. To be successful, this has to be an ongoing process that gives you enough feedback to know where and when, and how you should adjust.

My Two Cents

If you’re running a business with an online presence, you’ve gotta have an ad attribution model. The benefits of running a good one are too important to ignore. You can figure out which ad channels are working for you, and which ones are draining your ad spend budget.

You’re running ads to help improve your bottom line. You’re running ads to increase your ROI. You’re running ads to get new customers. And you’re running ads to scale your business.

So when you pick an ad attribution model it has to be one that is worth the effort. The last-click model is one that just grabs the lowest-hanging fruit. The lowest-hanging fruit is not necessarily the best fruit for you, it’s just the most obvious and easiest to get your hands on.

The last-click ad attribution model doesn’t take any of the customer’s journey into account. When you take this limited approach, it can completely jack up your ad spend budget in a bad way.

Look. We can talk about all of this on a phone call. Just book a free call with me and we can go over what you have going on. I will give you my input at no charge. And, of course, I’m gonna talk to you about Hyros.

If you’re not tracking your ads, you need to start. We can talk about that, too. Seriously. I’m here to help. Hyros can help you improve your ROI by 15 to 20%, and if it doesn’t, you’ll get all of your money back. It’s no risk to you.

Alrighty. That’s all I’ve got for you today.

This is Alex Beck of Hyros. Thanks for joining me. Have a good one.

HYROS TRACKING

If you are interested in obtaining the same stats I showed in this video and even having us help you set this up, GO HERE to get more information on HYROS.

Ad Training and Tactics

While I do not sell courses, I do offer a private coaching program where I train people on the ad strategies I have used to build multiple 8 figure and 7 figures businesses. You can get more details on that HERE.

HYROS Facebook Group

It’s really simple. This group is the best media buyer Facebook group online because we make sure that every member is spending significant ad spend before joining. It’s for veteran ad buyers only and because of that the networking/information being shared is on another level. You can apply to join HERE