Opening Your Eyes to Attribution or the Danger of Last-Click Decisions

Executive Summary
A well-known advertising agency was tasked by a high-profile healthcare e-Tail client with running a proof-of-concept online advertising campaign. The goal was to find the highest return on ad spend (ROAS) for dollars spent using pay-per-click (PPC) ads, blog advertising and social media. The agency was given a budget supplement and asked to execute campaigns.

After consulting its analytics software, the agency increased its spending on branded keywords, as those appeared to driving the highest conversion rates. The agency launched the PPC, social media and blog advertising campaigns and tracked results. At their conclusion, sales had indeed increased–but the conversion rate had dropped and the cost per conversion rate had skyrocketed. Because of the poor results and the shaky economy, the client terminated the budget supplement.

Because the agency relied on the ‘last-click’ attribution model provided by its current analytics provider, its decision to spend money on mainly branded ad terms was ultimately unsuccessful. Had the agency used a full-scale advertising analytics platform like ClearSaleing, it would have seen how non-branded ads played a vital part in raising brand and product awareness, generating sales and increasing profits.

Using ClearSaleing, the agency would have received an accurate, comprehensive view of its online advertising performance by properly distributing attribution credit among the spectrum of ads that helped create a sale. And as a result of properly attributing attribution credit, the agency would have been able to generate increased profits and a better ROI for its client, which in turn would have lead to more client ad spend and higher profits for the agency.

Campaign Background
A healthcare eTailer commissioned a well-known advertising agency to run a 3-month ‘proof-of-concept’ media campaign to determine the most effective online advertising spend. The budget for the 3-month period was 300 times the client’s normal pay-per-click budget. The goal was to find the highest return on ad spend for every dollar spent using:

• Pay-per-click advertising
• Blog advertising
• Social media networks

Pay-per-click was the obvious ‘low hanging fruit’ as it has been successful in driving not only traffic to the site, but also generating sales.

• Exhaust branded keywords and expand to other search engines (Yahoo & MSN)
• Test more generic keywords with landing pages and targeted ads
• The Decision and Initial Results:

The pay-per-click was increased and monitored using a standard web analytics platform.

The results showed:

• Blog advertising, while inexpensive, did not drive quality traffic or conversions
• Social media sites drove very little volume or conversions
• Introduction of non-brand terms (after brand term inventory had been exhausted) delivered less qualified visitors at a higher cost
• Although sales were increasing, the conversion rate was decreasing, culminating in a higher cost per order.

The reality was that there was a long list of keywords that were driving traffic, raising brand awareness and assisting with sales. But these keywords were getting no credit for the visit or for the sales with which they assisted.

Using the proper attribution management system, the budget would not have been cut back, simply revised to focus on the brand keywords and also the huge list of generic terms and long-tail keywords that were raising brand awareness. This would have resulted in higher profits for the client and more revenue for the agency.