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With a plethora of digital advertising solutions available (seems like more and more every day), the question about how to measure and how to attribute success has been evolving and is starting to become common practice.

At the OMMA Expo 2009, the “Campaign Attribution: From Pray & Spray to Performance & Profit” panel discussed the need to accurately measure, with options available to advertisers. The session was conducted by Joshua Dreller, VP, Fuor Digital, along with Roger Barnette, Searchlgnite; Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and Co-Founder, comScore, Inc.; Michael Lanese, CEO, ClearSaleing, Inc.; and Esco Strong, Director, Microsoft Advertising Institute.

My takeaway:  Marketers relying on last click are “missing the boat”. By properly measuring all digital touchpoints, marketers can easily see how all parts of a campaign affect the result.

All panelists talked of the problem today and were in agreement that there is a solution within reach providing some interesting results.

The Problem: Measuring and relying on the last click provides inaccurate results.  By doing this, you may be tossing out up to 94% of data that is associated to your campaign. This means that only the bottom portion of the sales funnel is being used to develop future marketing campaigns. 

The Findings: In reality, consumers are being exposed to ads over a long period of time over multiple touchpoints.  By analyzing the data, several panelists have found that most of the touchpoints contribute to a sale.  It is the weighting of the attribute that poses the next question, but can be defined.  In the case studies shown, there were different types of media that were attributable to different parts of the sales funnel.  In the top of the funnel, banners made an impact to introduce a brand or product through media properties like real-estate, photos, and music.  Media properties falling into the middle of the funnel helping to influence the decision included news, lifestyle, and sports.  While the bottom of the funnel, where many of us are capturing results, includes search and affiliates.  The data also showed that much of the activity at the lower levels of the funnel was generated by branded terms.  It was noted that search and display planners should be working together. 

There are several solutions on the market that allow marketers to aggregate data, weigh different media types, properties, ad sizes and more, and develop the complete ROI. The results can help you with near and future campaigns.