Five Types of Marketing Attribution Model
Once you have defined the customer journey and the marketing touchpoints that help convert customers, an attribution model determines how each marketing touchpoint will be credited for its contribution to the end result. Marketers have developed many types of attribution models based on their unique circumstances, campaigns, product, sales strategy, and KPIs. Below, we list five of the most common single-touch and multi-touch attribution models that marketing teams can use to assign credit for conversions.
Single-touch Attribution Models
A single-touch attribution model assigns all of the credit for revenue generation to one specific touchpoint along the marketing journey.
First Touch Attribution
A first-touch attribution model assigns 100% of the credit for a conversion event to the marketing touchpoint that drove a prospective customer to your website for the first time.
Lead Creation Attribution
A lead creation attribution model assigns 100% of the credit for a conversion event to the marketing touchpoint that generates a lead for your company. To deploy this model effectively, you should develop a clear definition of what constitutes a “lead”. A lead could consist of just a name and contact information for a prospect, but it may require additional qualifying criteria before it can be considered a lead.
Last Touch Attribution
In a last-touch attribution model, the creation of a sales opportunity is attributed to the last marketing touchpoint that the prospect interacted with before the conversion happened.
Multi-touch Attribution Models
Multi-touch attribution models assign varying levels of credit to each marketing touchpoint that the customer interacts with as they move through the marketing funnel towards a purchase. Unlike the single-touch attribution models, where individual touchpoints are assigned 100% of the credit, touchpoints in a multi-touch model share credit for conversion events. Marketing touchpoints in this paradigm are seen as collectively contributing to the conversion.
Linear Attribution
Linear attribution is the most simple multi-touch attribution model. Once a customer makes a purchase, the model distributes credit evenly between all of the marketing touchpoints that the customer interacted with within their purchasing journey. If the customer was referred to the website from social media, then interacted with a white paper, a YouTube video and a sales agent, each of these touchpoints would receive equal credit for contributing to the revenue generation.
Data-Driven Attribution
Data-driven attribution uses marketing analytics and complex algorithms to produce a customized attribution model that best aligns with your unique buying process. A data-driven attribution model can help organizations determine which of their marketing efforts and touchpoints have the greatest impact on accelerating purchase behaviors, how individual touchpoints contribute to conversions and how to optimize marketing spend.
Data-driven attribution is certainly the most complex type of attribution model, but the benefit is that you’ll get the most accurate picture of how your marketing touchpoints are contributing to downstream revenue.
