If you struggle with convincing company leadership that your marketing strategy is getting the stellar results it’s supposed to, here’s the best way to overcome marketing disagreements like this one: marketing attribution reports.

Attribution is all about giving credit where credit is due. With marketing attribution, you can better understand the impact that marketing has on your company’s goals for success.

Data from attribution reports connects your marketing efforts to sales priorities, like qualified lead generation, landing customers, revenue generation, customer lifetime value (CLV) - the total expected sales from one customer for the life of your business relationship with them, return on investment (ROI), and more.

Does leadership want to know if blog posts are generating leads? Or if your social media strategy is positively affecting sales? Do you want to know which channel is better for customer conversion, eBooks, or webinars? Running an attribution report can clarify the impact on leadership and you.

Marketing attribution can also help you:

• Show how your marketing efforts persuade people to build relationships with your brand and become customers.
• See patterns that can inform new initiatives and changes in strategy.
• Determine the most valuable marketing channels for your company.
• Support a data-driven decision process for improving marketing success.

How to Use Attribution Reports to Track the Success of Your Marketing

Follow these steps to create attribution reports that show you the channels and content that help your marketing efforts meet your company’s sales and marketing goals.

1. Decide on a schedule for analysis.

Choose a timeline for attribution analysis that will best benefit your company. Does your business run on an annual sales cycle? You can analyze multiple years of data at once. Does seasonality affect your business? Would you benefit more from weekly or monthly attribution reporting? Does analysis of every marketing campaign make sense for you? Do you want to have data on how your content aligns with your buyer’s journey? How about using attribution reporting as a planning tool for analyzing data before making strategy adjustments or delving into new areas?

2. Understand how your content supports the buyer journey.

Content is the connection between your company and your prospects. Attribution reports help you understand how your content is connecting, whether it’s a web page, blog, email, eBook, offer, social media post, or something else:

• See if your content affects the number of leads it generates.
• Find out the number of views a blog post or web page gets before conversion.
• Learn which types of content perform better than others for captivating customers.
• Know which marketing channels generate the most leads.
• Invest in the marketing channels that perform the best for your company.

Attribution reports are helpful for problem-solving issues related to the buyer journey:

• Find out where customers are churning.
• Notice trends and changes in audience behavior.
• Revise or remove content that doesn’t make an impact.
• Identify missed opportunities in the customer experience.

3. Collect the right data for attribution reports you can trust.

Choose a tool to track quantitative data on customer behavior before and after they make a purchase. Decide early on specific KPIs (key performance indicators) for each element you want to report on – marketing, sales, email, other content, buyer journey stages, etc. Build dashboards that include that KPI data. Always check the accuracy of your reporting data, no matter what.

4. Choose a marketing attribution model that best suits your purposes.

To make it most effective, attribution reporting uses different models based on your analysis goals. Other attribution models apply a different amount of credit to each customer-content interaction. The most common attribution models include:

First-Touch Attribution – credits the first interaction by a person on the buyer journey.

Last-Touch Attribution – credits the last interaction by a person on the buyer journey.

Multi-Touch Attribution – credits all the interactions a person makes up to a critical moment on the buyer journey. This includes Full Path, J-shaped, Inverse J-shape, and others, such as the U-shape, which credits the first and last touchpoints on the buyer journey for a conversion, and W-shaped, which credits the first and last interactions and a mid-funnel touchpoint.

Multi-Channel Attribution – compares the value of interactions on different marketing channels like social media, organic search, and email.

Linear Attribution – credits each interaction on the buyer journey equally for a comprehensive view of marketing performance.

Time Decay Attribution – credits most recent interactions more, the longer it takes for a prospect to convert.

Attribution reporting helps leadership see how marketing efforts impact the company’s business goals. The model you choose is based on the goal you want to measure, such as:

• How your marketing and sales effort generates leads.
• How much revenue your marketing efforts bring in.
• How to solve a problem in your marketing funnel.
• How to reimagine your marketing or conversion strategy.

5. Analyze and report attribution.

Is the data helping you answer your top questions? Your reports should show you which type of interactions, content, marketing channels, and more are having the most impact on your goal. Use charts and graphs to visualize each value and highlight data in your report to make the marketing attribution analysis easy to review and comprehend.

6. Incorporate new insights from results.

Act on any new insights gained from your analysis. Review your current marketing plans for opportunities to innovate your strategy or update your goals.

7. Give serious consideration to ever-changing data collection and storage guidelines.

A consumer’s personal, demographic, financial, and other data can help marketers create more personalized experiences for them. However, more consumers want to know how companies like yours use their information.

Even though 62% of surveyed consumers say they won't stay loyal to a brand that doesn't deliver a personalized experience, another survey shows 90% of consumers say they won't buy from a company that doesn't adequately protect its data.

You might be caught between getting the data you need for accurate marketing attribution and meeting consumer expectations.

That’s where the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) comes in. It protects consumers by mandating that companies must have explicit consent from their customers to use their personal data as part of their digital marketing strategies. So, the onus is on you to ensure your company is ready to address consumer privacy concerns. HubSpot’s comprehensive GDPR checklist can help.

11outof11 Knows Content Marketing

If you need help honing your marketing attribution reports into undeniable proof of the value of your marketing, connect with 11outof11. Request a complimentary call with an 11outof11 expert. Contact us to learn more.