Digital Marketing Attribution - Basic Thoughts

(This post originally appeared in Digital Draw, a digital banking site sponsored by Intel)

With the proliferation of devices offering customers new online access, businesses are increasingly faced with even more measurement methodologies.  Deciding which channels lead to actual customers at stores can be as much a sport as choosing a NCAA bracket.

The study of marketing attribution  - the process of assigning sales contributions from one or more marketing channels - also provides what I think is an implied opportunity for small retailers managing multiple digital customer engagement.  Let's look at it from the perspective of a digital signage display - all the rage and increasingly a part of urban business marketing, small or large.

Digital display signage can bridge offline and online marketing exposure.  The media served can guide customers who discover the offer online to valuable offers and online information sources prior to a purchase or sales discussion.

The most recent studies have revealed the value of offline influences on a digital marketing plan.  For example, eMarketer noted in a recent article on multi-channel marketing that despite fragmentation of customer attention, “Offline channels such as TV, radio, and print media were the ways consumers frequently discovered new brands.”  Media for a digital display signage can provide means to first catch the customers’ offline eye, showing online-purposed media that leads customers to view an online offer or information regarding services.

Furthermore, positioning digital signage among offline marketing sources can be a known variable in a confusing effort to attribute marketing channels, particularly when non-technical reasons are involved.   In fact many respondents to a Google and eConsultancy marketing attribution white paper Marketing Attribution: Valuing The Customer Journey stated that conflict among departments during attribution analysis can be a significant obstacle.

But by planning digital signage media that address department objectives in a campaign, retail banks have an opportunity to align departments around the customer sales experience.  The benefit is a effective application of knowledge that can better discern the customer path and choose the metrics that matters most.  Google/eConsultancy survey respondents believed that understanding the sales cycle is a key factor to interpreting analytic data and to revealing the marketing channel most likely to influence customers.

Marketing attribution analysis is still in its infancy among practitioners. Digital display signage with online-purposed media campaigns can mature that effort in a great way for many banks seeking offline and online success in reaching customers.