By Amy Hooker, Maven Communications

During a fascinating and insightful hour-long webinar December 1, account managers, brand managers and search marketers from advertisers and agencies listened to Forrester Research analyst Emily Riley and ClearSaleing co-founder Adam Goldberg explain why attribution management is a discipline that should be applied to marketing spend at all budget levels.

Webinar participants learned that attribution is the practice of distributing credit for an action or conversion across multiple ads rather than assigning full credit to the most recent ad.  ClearSaleing’s Adam Goldberg is an evangelist for eliminating ‘last click’ thinking, and moving marketers toward the concept of using attribution modeling to give proper credit to all touchpoints that contribute to a conversion.

Searching for Accuracy

The webinar also focused on the role of search in attributing credit for conversions. Typically a consumer can conduct several searches before moving toward a purchase. Paid search is a very effective closing vehicle, but often, it is not where a customer’s Purchase Path begins, said Goldberg.  Search often gets overvalued because shopping engines, email campaigns, social media and other touchpoints are not measured along the Purchase Path, Goldberg explained.

Attribution Modeling

Advertisers and agencies have options on what type of attribution they choose to employ.  First click attribution is useful for determining which touchpoint created momentum toward a conversion. Equal credit attribution assigns the same value to each touchpoint. Algorithmic attribution is a higher investment but the most accurate because each touchpoint gets the most accurate credit.

ClearSaleing’s model is based on algorithmic attribution, which employs a sample size large enough to be statistically relevant.  ClearSaleing and its partner, Vetra Analytics, analyze hundreds of thousands of touchpoints along a Purchase Path.  These touchpoints include organic and paid search, shopping engines, email response and social media sites – all points along a Purchase Path that contribute to a conversion.  With this data, ClearSaleing is able to assign a weight to each touchpoint that is a realistic predictor of influence.

Why Attribution?

Attribution moves marketers further away from ‘last click’ thinking, which does not represent an accurate picture of how consumers act or buy.  By applying attribution, marketers can see what ads are working to bring in ROI and eliminate those that are not working, making the necessary adjustments to their marketing spend.

The best practice is to recalibrate your marketing mix based on seasonality and other key factors relating to your particular business, said Goldberg, who noted that ClearSaleing often works with clients quarterly to calibrate the effectiveness of their marketing spend.

Regardless of the level of marketing spend, the webinar presented a clear case on why attribution can help all advertisers and agencies not spend more, but spend smarter.

During the webinar Riley referred to her Q4 2009 Forrester Wave Report on Interactive Attribution, in which ClearSaleing was named as a leader.  For more information visit www.ClearSaleing.com

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