What is Marketing Attribution

Marketing Attribution Definition

Marketing attribution is the process by which a company can determine how much of their success (or lack thereof) can be attributed to their marketing activities. Marketing attribution is important because it empowers businesses to gain a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t insofar as their marketing efforts are concerned—so as you might suspect, accurate marketing attribution is a primary goal of strategic marketing.

Marketing Attribution Example

Upon realizing that they’re not really sure how well their marketing efforts are working, a business decides to engage in marketing attribution. The predicament of spending on advertising without having much (or any) hard data concerning real results is actually quite common, but it doesn’t have to be.

The business selects a marketing attribution model to study at which points along the buying cycle potential customers become leads and when leads become paying customers. Once this data is discovered, the business is able to refine their lead generation strategy, enhance the overall customer experience, and reduce their customer acquisition cost.

Businesses that understand which parts of their sales pipeline are the most important can capitalize on this information by further refining the touch points that matter. If certain elements of the strategy aren’t working—and thus wasting money and time—they can be dropped or modified.

Why is Marketing Attribution Important for Strategic Marketing?

Strategy: One of the key elements of a strategic marketing process is the ability to know that your marketing efforts are working (or, if they’re not, why not), rather than “flying blind.” Marketing attribution helps businesses have a better understanding of their marketing activities and where (or where not) to focus their attention.
Continuous Improvement: Marketing attribution hugely helps speed along the continuous improvement of a business, because the data gleaned allows the business to focus on advertising campaigns that work, without wasting money on the ones that don’t.