Attribution Masterclass: My Notes - Pt. 1 - Intro to Attribution

This blog post is part of a series on marketing attribution available here. 

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The Attribution Masterclass is a series about marketing attribution organized by Timo Dechau and Barbara Galiza. I'm thrilled to share I'm in the first cohort taking the masterclass with regular meetups every Thursday till the 21st of November.

Here follow my notes with the most important concepts shown during the masterclass. Some of the notions would be better explained using the slides the authors have made: For that, you need to actually enroll in the Masterclass: here's the page where you can sign up.

Let me recommend you to follow Timo and Barbara on Linkedin to know more about the masterclass and in general to get interesting insights and opinions on marketing attribution.

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1. Intro to Attribution

1.1. Attribution journeys

1.2. Debunking Attribution Myths

1.3. Why we attribute

1.4. Attribution and Business Strategy

1.5. Types of Attribution

1. Intro to Attribution

1.1. Attribution journeys

1. Typical attribution models: First Touch, Last Touch, Data-Driven [more on this later]

2. Warning: These attribution models are all click-based so some viewed ads up in the funnel will be ignored

1.2. Debunking Attribution Myths

1. Multi-Touch Attribution is actually not there anymore, since today it has limitations

2. There are no tools that can solve all your attribution problems

3. The best attribution method actually depends on specific needs

4. Attribution is a model, with strategy and operations layer

5. There’s not just one method and that’s it so no Single Source of Truth

1.3. Why we attribute

1. To understand customer journeys, key touchpoints to allocate mktg budget

2. To measure impact and optimize our strategy

1.4. Attribution and Business Strategy

1. Business strategy is the higher-level vision informing the following (e.g. grow revenue from new customers by 10%)

2. Marketing strategy outlines initiatives and campaigns (e.g. test new channels, involve new influencers and so on)

3. Attribution strategy (e.g. dimensions for campaigns with new influencers: measure impressions, discount codes, run an uplift test)

4. Major takeaway: When you plan your mktg strategy you should also plan your attribution stategy

1.5. Types of Attribution

1. Click-Based models
   1. Last-Click, First-Click, Linear, Position-Based
   2. Data-Driven: Comprehensive Analysis, Markov Chain, Fractional Attribution, Optimization Insights

2. View-Based models
   1. You consider also if the user has viewed an ad (for instance a view-through conversion window can be set in GAds)
   2. You can also track this by adding a pixel anywhere the user could view an ad

3. MMM (Mktg Mix Modeling)
   1. Economic approach
   2. Channel agnostic
   3. Measuring impact

4. Zero-Party Data
   1. How you did you hear about us? (HDYHAU), this simple question can make a difference
   2. The earlier you gather Zero-Party Data the better
   3. Customer perspective is what you get in this case
   4. Compared to other attribution types, ROI in this case is not as easy to calculate but other data/datasets about users can help with this

5. Enhancing Attribution
   1. Rule-Based Approaches, e.g. zero-party data can weight mktg channels or activities
   2. Combination of Models, multiple forms of attribution are combined
3. Click Prediction, data models predicting which campaign sessions have come from organic or direct clicks