Accountability is something that is incredibly important in order for the departments within a company to work well together. Unfortunately, in a corporate environment, in this age of “consensus,” it is not easy to assign or accept.
The lack of rightful accountability is often quite prevalent in marketing and sales. Since most B2B organizations use a wide range of digital strategies to generate leads and convert customers, it is hard to say which approaches are working better than others. This can also make it quite difficult for marketing teams to be totally honest with themselves and identify weak strategies.
This is just one reason why accurate digital attribution is so important. It helps marketing teams to understand just how much their efforts play into the customer journey, which can help to make their efforts more effective and guide their budget spending towards the strategies that bring the greatest returns.
IAB defines attribution as “the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events”) across screens and touch points that contribute in some manner to the desired outcome, and then assigning value to each of these events.”
In digital marketing, proper attribution can be a total game-changer and help businesses reach their end goals. However, there are some things that even the savviest of B2B marketers need to understand before applying this approach to their own strategies.
Quick Takeaways:
- Today’s customers go back and forth along the marketing funnel, which resembles a conveyor belt.
- Marketing tools and channels generate huge amounts of data today. You need to know how to make sense of this data.
- Do experiment with attribution models. A multi-touch model with more weightage on the first and last touches is good to start with.
The Modern Customer Journey is No Longer Linear
Gone are the days when customers follow a simple three-step path towards a conversion. Since consumers are interacting with brands from multiple sources each day, the path is more like a spider’s web than a straight line. There are twists and turns and some customers even backtrack before they make a final purchasing decision.
Moreover, businesses today are using numerous methods and channels to reach customers wherever they can. Most B2B organizations use a marketing mix of multiple strategies, the most common being email campaigns, content marketing, and in-person events.
All of these strategies have an important role…
