Digiday: Solving the Attribution Puzzle

As written by Brian Morrissey in Solving the Web’s Attribution Puzzle

Another data point in the attribution debate comes courtesy of C3 Metrics, a New York company that helps marketers measure the effects of their ad campaigns on sales. The methodology used by C3 over the course of 50,000 transactions in the first quarter of the year, found display advertising led to 44 percent of those conversions. That’s compared to 27 percent for search and 18 percent for affiliate.

By that last-click standard, display would have gotten only 14 percent of the credit in the sample examined by C3.

“It’s a massive problem,” Hughes said, estimating between 30-45 percent of online media is “wasted” because marketers weight the wrong things and don’t spend in the right places that actually drive consumers to make buys.

C3 wants to change that by giving more weight to a conversion’s “originator,” which is a way of saying ads higher in the purchase funnel that build awareness. The originator ads can get from 25 to 65 percent of the credit for a conversion, depending on factors like how often the product or service is purchased.

Old habits die hard, however. Hughes believes the click will remain a top measurement criteria until companies come up with viable, cost-effective alternatives.

“If you’re buyer, you gotta explain to boss or client that you’ve been wrong,” he said. “That’s a hard conversation to have. You’ve got to present a solution.”

Read the entire article at Digiday