1. What are attribution models?
The answer is simple and crystal clear, as you might imagine. It’s knowing how one thing influences another thing in order to achieve an objective. For example:
- How much influence does TV have on Google searches when it comes time to obtain a business contact?
- How much influence does a banner campaign using the best media outlets of a country have on brand campaigns in search engines?
- How much influence does social media have on all traffic sources in order to obtain sales?
Attribution models are problematic because they only measure clicks, not intentions. In other words, if a user clicks on one traffic source, and then on another, it’s taken for granted that the first click has influenced the second click. It might be, however, that the user has merely browsed through that first click. Is there too much importance being given to one click?
2. Customer Journey:
As we have already mentioned, if an attribution model is the study and analysis of the influence of some channels on others in order to achieve an objective (conversion), and we analyze this concept at the level of the individual customer, we are referring to the Customer Journey, in other words, where and how many clicks are needed for a user to actually buy something.
Because of that, it is just as important to measure which channels a user has used when he/she actually buys something, as when they do not.