Leads and conversion on our websites are golden, so to whom do you attribute these little nuggets of gold?
Last touch? First Touch (if you could ever know what that is)…. One day? Seven Days? Last Year? Or do you abdicate your own POV to Google?
After all Google Analytics is easy to sell internally to cross-functional peers. Unless your communication plan is exclusively through Google – Google analytics attribution will not be enough.
Historically marketers have not been known as analytical numbers folks. However, as our craft has gone digital we can now attribute very crisp returns on our investments and evolve from an expense line on the P&L to a profit center. However, there is still an art to the math. Since consumers do not live in one “channel” of communication, we cannot attribute a single channel of communication for all the site traffic or sales. This leaves us the responsibility of creating unique attribution models appropriate to specific campaigns.
For example, You launch a new product on the Rachel Ray show. During the show, you tweet to your followers big thanks to Rachel Rayfor supporting your launch. Your site has been optimized so that search will bring your product up to the top of the search organically, as well as, sponsored search to be guarantee first position. Pinterest has boards showing all the uses of this product and is now trending. Facebook live video aired from the Rachel Ray green room by your social media manager. There are also several affiliate marketing sites supporting your product launch. Who do you attribute the site visits and sales this week when you report back into the cross-functional team about the amazing success of your first week in the market?
Here is where persistence versus resistance is critical to maximizing the success of your product launch. Not every communication vehicle will be equally valuable, and this is where the real art of our craft begins. What do you dial up and what do you dial back? Persistent marketers will immediately start playing with the dials and watch daily, weekly and monthly impacts of all your channels to see where traffic and engagement are active. There is also a need to believe in your gut and if one channel is suffering, don’t assume it is the channel but more likely your execution in that channel. Test different target definitions. Test different content.
Be authentic to the channels and don’t be lazy with the same content plastered on all channels. “Consumer Speak” search terms are rarely a headline for a social post, so I’m sure you aren’t mixing those two, right?
Be persistent with our communication craft and take the attribution data from all the different channels not as a go/no go directive, but as a gauge for changing the dials to optimize and keep the traffic coming and converting.
Rebecca Fretty
President & CMO, PinkImperfection