Is Multi Touch attribution still relevant?

Sep 5, 2024

Is multi touch attribution still relevant?

Absolutely, multi touch attribution remains a relevant tool in the evolving landscape of marketing analytics. In an era where the reliance on cookies is diminishing, businesses are increasingly drawn to marketing mix modelling. However, it’s important not to overlook the insights that multi touch attribution can provide.

At Magpie, we recognize the significance of multi touch attribution as part of a comprehensive marketing effectiveness solution. By integrating it with incrementality testing and marketing mix modelling into triangulation, we believe in its power to deliver comprehensive insights.

Multi touch attribution still offers several advantages that can be used to synergize methodologies. 

  1. Granular insights: Multi touch attribution enables us to differentiate the effectiveness of each campaign, allowing us to understand which efforts are driving the most value. This granularity is essential for optimising marketing strategies and allocating resources effectively. For instance, variations in creative or targeting between Social campaign A and Social campaign B can be accurately captured and analysed, allowing for precise value distribution.

  2. Flexibility: Unlike some other measurement tools, multi touch attribution provides agility and adaptability. To illustrate this, consider comparing measurement tools to boats. Marketing mix modelling could be likened to a big cargo ship, powerful but relatively inflexible. On the other hand, multi-touch attribution resembles a nimble speedboat, highly adaptable to changing conditions. Changes in strategy, targeting, or creative elements can be quickly reflected in the results of multi touch attribution modelling.

  3. Adding customer characteristics: By incorporating customer characteristics into the attribution model we can further refine our understanding of marketing effectiveness. A great example is that of new versus returning customers. Value should be distributed differently when a campaign only drives conversions from returning customers. These relevant features can only be implemented with multi touch attribution. 

However, it’s important to also acknowledge and address the downsides of multi touch attribution. And the ways to overcome them.

  1. Model bias: Multi touch attribution will probably overvalue certain marketing campaigns, such as retargeting or branded search, as these campaigns drive many converting customers. To overcome this bias, we implement incrementality corrections measured through incrementality testing, ensuring a more accurate assessment of campaign effectiveness.

  2. Measuring long-term effects: While multi touch attribution excels at measuring short-term effects, tracking customer behaviour over longer periods can be challenging, especially as cookies degrade over time. To address this limitation, we complement multi touch attribution with Marketing Mix modelling to capture longer-term effects and calibrate our insights accordingly.

In conclusion, multi touch attribution remains a valuable tool for understanding the impact of marketing interactions and optimising campaign performance. If you’re interested in exploring how multi touch attribution can benefit your business, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Magpie. We’re here to help you navigate the complexities of marketing analytics and drive meaningful results.