In this Purchase Path, a consumer searches for “Flowers” and clicks on an ad for ProFlowers, yet they don’t make a purchase. They are then exposed to 2 banner impressions. After being exposed to the banners, the consumer returns to the site and makes a purchase from ProFlowers .
In Attribution Rule A, there are 3 ads involved (search, banner, banner), and all 3 ads contributed to the sale. Therefore credit is split evenly among the ads.
In Attribution Rule B, you are choosing to allocate 100% of the credit to the search. There is no guarantee that the consumer saw the banners or was influenced by them, so credit goes to the more search.
In Attribution Rule C, all 3 ads deserve credit, yet the allocation is different. It is believed the banners had some influence on the consumer, yet not as much as the search ad. Therefore the search deserves a larger portion of credit than the 2 banners
In this purchase path, there are 3 searches. First there is a search for “Running shoes”. A Finish Line ad gets clicked on, but there is no purchase. The search is then refined to “Women’s Nike Shox”, again the consumer clicks on a Finish Line ad, but does not make a purchase. Then, they search “Finish Line” (a branded term), they click on the link, and a sale occurs. However this time the product that was purchased was a pair of Oakley women’s sunglasses. The product purchased was different than the product that was previously searched for.
In Attribution Rule A, there were 3 ads involved before the sale. Regardless of what product was purchased, all 3 ads contributed and therefore deserve equal credit for the sale.
In Attribution Rule B, the product sold does not matter. However when a branded term is used at the end of a path, it is being used to navigate back to the Finish Line. The customer could’ve found the Finish Line through the address bar or bookmark, however they choose to use search again. In this instance the consumer has already decided to buy and therefore no sales credit goes back to the branded term at the end of a Purchase Path. Credit for the sale is split evenly between the first and second search.
In Attribution Rule C, the purchase has nothing to do with what they searched for. Therefore credit is excluded from the terms that do not relate to the product bought. All of the credit of the sale is attributed to the final ad for “Finish Line”
In this Purchase Path a search was done and on the same day a purchase was made. Over a week later another search was done and a purchase followed 2 days later. Less than a week later, another purchase was made. If both searches are a crucial part of the sale, which one deserves more credit for the second sale- the first search or the second search?
In Attribution Rule A, the first search deserves more credit for the sales
In Attribution Rule B, the second search deserves more credit for the sales
In this Purchase Path, on January 1, someone did a search for running shoes and clicked on a sponsored link for Finish Line. Then, two weeks later they did a more refined search and looked up Nike Women’s Shox. They didn’t purchase this time, but instead clicked on a Finish Line Sponsored link. Two weeks after this, on January 30, they searched Nike Shox Turbo VII, clicked on the Finish Line sponsored link, and this time they completed the purchase.
In Attribution Rule A, all ads are equally important to the sale and were each a crucial part of the purchase process. Therefore the credit is split evenly among the 3 search ads
In Attribution Rule B, the first ad is the most important. Without that first ad, the consumer might not have discovered Finish Line after the second and third search. If Finish Line didn’t not show up for the very general term “running shoes”, they might not have been included in their consideration set.
In Attribution Rule C, the last ad before the conversion gets all the credit. This could be due to the fact that the searches occurred over a month and you believe that too much time elapsed between the searches and therefore only the last ad clicked before the purchase is relevant.
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About Attribution Management
In the world of online marketing, Attribution Management is the process of properly identifying and valuing the chain of marketing initiatives and advertisements that lead to a sale or conversion.
