Attribution Is Dead – Treat Your Campaigns Like Your Website

The holy grail of marketing was once considered to be attribution. Multi-touch points, user journeys and fractional credit assignments were obsessed over by marketers. Then came GDPR, iOS privacy changes and the slow painful death of cookies. Would you class them as decision making tools now? As these days they look more like incomplete puzzles.

Here’s the truth. We’ve had better ways of measuring marketing effectiveness for years now. Instead of relying solely on attribution reports, we should be focussing on two core things –

Forming Hypotheses That Matter

Instead of over analysing user paths, focus on Big Picture Questions

• Does increasing spend on X channel actually drive more revenue?
• Should we shift budget from paid social to search?
• Is brand marketing really paying off?

Measuring Success at the Right Level

Although attribution reports provide useful signals, they should not be the only source of truth. The real power lies in aggregated data models that work with tracking individuals –

• Marketing Mix Models (MMM): Analysing long term spend vs revenue trends to understand where investment pays off
• Regression Models: Identifying the relationship between spend and performance using aggregated data
• Causal Impact Analysis: Measuring the actual effect of increased spend by isolating external noise

The Takeaway? Test, Don’t Just Track

Attribution reports still have value but they only tell part of the story. If you’re unsure on whether an increase in spend has actually had an impact, test it. If you want to know whether your brand campaign is driving sales, model it.

On reflection attribution probably isn’t dead, more evolving (Not as catchy a title though) The key lesson though is it’s time to stop solely relying on incomplete path data and start treating marketing measurement like we treat web performance. By focusing on broader patterns, testing changes and using aggregated insight to drive decisions.

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