Marketing attribution is a term certainly more recognizable now with the growth of “big data” and marketing analytics tools. It is the ability to see what actions and events influence individual consumers on their way to purchase, otherwise known as a “conversion path.” Online, tracking codes like “Cookies” trace our personal preferences in order to give advertisers proof that their strategies are working, or not.

The impact of marketing attribution

What if I told you that you could have a map showing the exact route consumers use to get to your type of business? The map would clearly show each stop they would take along the way, and what information they were gathering at the stops. Theoretically, you could plan to have a representative at each of the stops making sure the consumers receive your promotions and info to influence them to arrive at your business as their final destination.

Now, what if we take that same map and erase a few of the stops in the middle of the route? First, you’d lose some knowledge about what information was gathered by the consumers at the missing stops. Secondly, you’d have to guess where to send your representatives and hope the information they provided matched what the consumers were looking for. Sure, some consumers may end up at your business, but you’d be missing a critical piece of the puzzle that helped you understand how to get more consumers to your business.

This is what it’s like to have, and then not have clear marketing attribution in your business. We recently worked with a hotel experiencing this exact problem. Read the case study below.

Hotel marketing attribution case study

We ran campaigns and saw ad system conversions in terms of clicks, lead activity and rooms booked, but the conversions (reservations) were not getting correct attribution in the booking engine, thus negating the impact of marketing and driving up the Cost Per Acquisition.

M&Co’s team of media and conversion experts set out to find the fall off. Through conversations with the booking engine’s IT and account team, plus the client’s own internal team, the agency’s team discovered issues with how the system was reporting the landing page activity and subsequent bookings.

The outcome of the campaign, based on real-time optimization in light of booking activity, produced a huge return on investment. To see highlights of that ROI from the campaign, take a look at the brief deck below.