Digital Marketing has introduced a profusion of new channels to reach prospects with the aim to persuade, drive engagement and relationship; including PPC advertising, affiliate marketing, pay-per performance network buys, display advertising and email marketing. The proliferation and inherent advantages of multi-channel advertising have existed well before the advent of Digital Marketing.

As early as 1989, advertisers and research firms such as Millward Brown, proved the value of combining multiple media and advertising programs to maximise effectiveness. The “Media Multiplier” theory emerged, stating that when two or more media are taken into account, the combined impact is more than the sum total of the two individual media. While this theory has been widely accepted and translated into Digital Marketing, most advertisers are blind to its true magnitude and impact.

Why the last click gets too much credit?

This is largely because the large majority of advertisers still subscribe to the industry standard which attributes a transaction to the last ad interaction. Furthermore, the “rule of attribution” set as a default within third party ad-servers is based on the last click.

This attribution rule has lead to what is referred as “click through tunnel vision” – focusing on the last click before a transaction ” under-estimating the value of the media that preceded that last click. From a practical perspective, the “rules of attribution” are taking precedence over the “rules of advertising” providing a skewed perspective on the optimal balance between PPC advertising and display based advertising.

Under the “last click” rule of attribution, click driven channels such as PPC search, are attributed and credited for a disproportionate amount of transactions. While PPC advertising is an effective online advertising channel, it benefits from being widely used at the start and end point of the consumer purchase cycle. By attributing 100% of a transaction to the last click, there is a danger in underestimating the contribution and value of impression based channels. After all, advertisers don’t just measure the success of a poster by how many people buy the product advertised from the nearest shop.

The evidence

A study conducted by the ATLAS Institute, titled “How Overlap Impacts Reach, Frequency and Conversions,” asserts that 90 percent of the consumers that converted were reached by placements other than the last ad clicked, and that far too often the proper credit for the sale is inappropriately given to search. The study also found that two out of three consumers who eventually took a responsive action were reached by ads across multiple sites before actually going on to make a purchase, and that consumers reached across multiple publishers were twice as likely to convert as those reached only on a single publisher.

As discussed earlier, it is not a question of display based programs being more effective than PPC Advertising or vis-versa, it is a about how both channels work together. This synergy between PPC advertising and Display based programs is confirmed by a study conducted by the ATLAS Institute indicating conversion rates from search advertising is 22% better when used in conjunction with display based programs. Further research indicates 80% of users exposed to display advertising and completed a search, completed a booking within 8 days . What is the reason for this uplift in conversion?

1. Display advertising generates brand awareness and increased purchase intent, reinforcing messages from other channels.

2. Display ads can help win over interested users who may be “on the fence” about purchasing. Display advertising “generates demand” for products and services, while search is far more efficient at “meeting demand”.

3. Search may be used as a navigational tool on a repeat visit to sites which users have previously visited via a display based ad.

Furthermore, the last click “rule of attribution” has a significant impact on the reporting of PPC advertising. The “last click” rule under-represents the contribution of generic search terms as part of the research and purchase cycle on consumers on search engines.

A study entitled “Search Before Purchase” published by Doubleclick, provides insight into the way consumers use search; supporting the importance of generic terms as part of the overall purchase funnel leading to a transaction purchase.

Travel buyers conduct an average of 6 relevant searches in the 12 weeks before purchasing a holiday, car hire, flight or hotel.

76% of keyword searches conducted by travel buyers are generic, with only 21.5% being for brand

Implications

The impact of “last click attribution” on the reporting and management of Online Media is significant.

1. Programs and sites that have a significant impact on reaching and driving purchase intent, but are not attributed credit for the transaction; are removed from campaigns and schedules based on attribution to the last click.

2. Investment and budget decisions are purely driven by the ability of the media to generate the last interaction (last click) as opposed to their impact on the entire purchase cycle.

3. Last click attribution negates the impact of overlap. Overlap being defined as users seeing ads across multiple sites or placements. Research indicates that that, while a minority of users are reached across multiple sites, they consume media at a higher rate than users exclusively reached on a single site. More importantly, this overlap group is responsible for the majority of transactions.

4. The true value of behavioral targeting programs and tenancy sponsorships is not considered; by not crediting media placements aimed at driving relevance and consideration prior to the final click.

Solutions

While it is important to identify the issues and implications related to “last click attribution”, it is more important to identify possible solutions. We have listed a series of solutions, providing a roadmap for consideration and enablement.

1. Get “under the hood” of your campaign data. Commission a research study that analyses the “exposure to attribution path” of your online campaigns. By analyzing the third party-ad server log files, including the initial interaction time stamp and conversion time stamp, it is possible to determine a path of conversion and the sites associated with it.

Complement the “exposure to attribution path” with a Time to Conversion Study, which would identify the time lag between first exposure, last click and transaction. This is a significant data point which will reveal the optimal “length of attribution” for your view and click based media. The default post impression and post click window on most ad-servers is set at 30 days. The window of conversion can be modified, ranging from minutes to days.

2. Customize the rules of attribution within your third party ad-server. Leveraging the data from your research and log file analysis customize your attribution rules. The attribution of online sales by third party ad-servers is flexible given they are rule based. Specific rules can be established, replacing the “last click” default. For example, a rule can be defined which states “last click, if exposed to less than two previous views”. This rule would ensure that a transaction was awarded to a click only if it was preceded by less than two views ” acknowledging transactions driven by more than two views have been largely driven by display based programs.

However it is important to point out the final decision on the attribution rules should be determined by your overall online media mix. An emerging trend is the weighting of attribution between click and view based media. Sophisticated advertisers, aware of the synergies between online media channels, have started attributing 50% of a conversion to the last view and 50% to the last click.

3. Complement third party ad-serving with site analytics tracking. Assign a referring ID tag to all your online marketing programs, creating a unique referring ID by channel (e.g. email marketing, PPC search, display advertising). While site analytics should never replaces third party ad-serving for the optimization and management of online marketing, it should be used as a supporting measurement tool to validate figures.

4. Assign a place in your media plan for conversion influencers. By committing investment to key sites at the start of the purchase funnel, your bottom cost of transaction and brand will benefit. However this approach requires budget holders, the client, to buy into the value of these investments. This can be challenging given the propensity to measure the value of online media on the basis of attributed revenue. Furthermore, and as discussed in What is Return on Investment, there is a propensity to view return as a mutually exclusive metric, which does not account for exposure or influence.

More importantly, a model that measures and recognizes consumption, as opposed to just interaction, is required to gain a more balanced and accurate view on the contribution of online marketing to the bottom line.

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