Multi-touch attribution (MTA) is a powerful analytical approach that helps businesses understand the impact various marketing channels have on business outcomes. Unlike single-touch attribution, which gives all the credit to one interaction, MTA assigns value to multiple touchpoints—providing a more holistic view of how different marketing efforts contribute to conversions.
In this guide, we’ll cover what multi-touch attribution is, its benefits, examples, and how Winston Francois goes about implementing multi-touch attribution for our clients.
What is multi-touch attribution?
Multi-touch attribution is a digital marketing measurement that takes all the touchpoints along the customer journey to determine which interaction has the most value towards a conversion. The goal of measuring multi-touch attribution is to find out which channel should get credit for a conversion, therefore uncovering where future marketing spend should be allocated in order to effectively acquire more customers.
Benefits of multi-touch attribution
Wondering what makes multi-touch attribution so important for your marketing campaigns? Reaching your customers across multiple channels is crucial, but MTA helps to determine which channels are the most effective so you can optimize your marketing spend. Here are some additional benefits of utilizing multi-touch attribution modeling:
Informed decision-making
Understanding the full customer journey enables businesses to allocate marketing budgets more effectively.
Optimized campaigns
By identifying which channels are most effective at different stages of the funnel, you can optimize campaigns content, messaging, design, format and audience to yield results.
Improved ROI
MTA helps marketers pinpoint high-performing channels, leading to increased conversions and better return on investment.
Examples of multi-touch attribution
Imagine a potential customer (named Sarah) is interested in purchasing a SaaS subscription.. Here’s how her journey might look through various marketing channels:
1. Social media ad
Sarah sees an ad on Instagram while scrolling through her feed that shows a video of the product and use. Intrigued, she clicks on it but doesn’t make a purchase. This click lands Sarah on a landing page to highlight the value-props (this is an example of a top of funnel ad).
2. Blog post
A week later, Sarah reads a blog post on the brand’s website about the value of the SaaS product’s integrations and she shares with the rest of her team. This content reinforces her interest.
A day after the blog post view Sarah schedules a demo and converts into a trial account.
3. Email
Same day Sarah received an email welcoming her to the trial account and offering tips on how to best utilize the tool.
4. Google search
Finally, Sarah searches for the SaaS brand, and decides to upgrade her account to a paid plan to access necessary gated features.
In this scenario, each interaction plays a critical role in Sarah’s decision-making process. Multi-touch attribution allows the brand to see the value Meta adds, sales support, blog content, email campaign, and search presence all contributed to the final revenue associated to Sarah’s journey.
Our approach to multi-touch attribution
At Winston Francois, we have experience leveraging advanced analytics tools to implement multi-touch attribution models tailored to your business needs. Our team works with you to:
- Analyze cross channel customer interactions. This mostly requires additional tagging and technical tooling to better track user interactions.
- Assign appropriate credit to each touchpoint based on its influence on conversions. This value assignment also requires knowledge of customer value and estimated value.
- Develop actionable insights to refine your marketing strategy and enhance customer engagement.
Ready to optimize your marketing efforts?
Book a free session to learn how multi-touch attribution can transform your marketing strategy and drive better results!
