This year I was lucky enough to attend the Search Insider Summit in Captiva, Florida, for two reasons.  One, this conference is one of the best (though I do find it a bit incestuous) out there for Search and Online integration – it completely delves deeper, and I believe, provokes thought more than say a SES.  Two, it was in Florida’s high 80 degree weather and on the beach, and not in NYC’s rainy low 60 degree weather.  I attended most of the discussions, and a common theme of attribution became prevalent by the end of the conference.  Attribution in the Search world, for those of you that don’t have your buzz word dictionaries handy, is summed up basically by assigning value to all of the media that a consumer partakes in before they become a conversion, not just the last click.  Currently, most companies are using a Last Click Attribution Model.  This attribution theme was all over the place, but centered around these main themes; ability to track an attribution model that moves away from the last click, politics on that model and guidelines on the weights that model will bring.

The first theme of having an ability to track results based on a model other than the last click are there, but just hard to find.  Marion Software and Atlas are two that have the capability, or are driving the solutions that will allow us to do this sort of tracking seamlessly.  I admit, I have not worked with either in this capacity, but have been involved with Atlas as they were working on this model over a year ago.  The need or major push to work away from last click attribution just has not been there yet, and this brings up the next theme, politics.

The Politics Behind the Click

Politics, or the whole philosophical realm of moving away from a last click attribution model, is a sticky one.  The discussion seems to always center on search being against it, while some search marketers might be, I am not.  The thought is that search will lose conversions if we start giving other mediums credit for part of our conversions, this is true, but I also see search gaining in areas where we were part of the process, but a display ad received the credit.  This also brings up the point that display is measured on view throughs, while search is measured on conversion on the click.  Attributing credit across all media that participates will allow search to now be part of this view through conversion also.

Where I see the real benefits of moving away from a last click attribution model is not from Display, Print, Radio, TV, et al. receiving credit from search campaigns, but from search becoming able to really open up our campaigns and realizing that all of our campaigns can work in conjunction with each other, even if Google receives the credit.  This will open up the other second and third tier engine opportunities and “outside the search box” opportunities, by giving them some of the conversion credit, and allowing us as marketers to not keep just giving Google our money, though it does work.  We need the industry to grow, not just Google.  More importantly, in my opinion, than just expanding to other search engines, mobile campaigns and “outsiders” is to answer the discussion of why do I spend money on generic terms when it is just the Brand terms that convert.  We have many case studies and have done countless tests on this scenario and are able through these to explain the reasons, but clients react better and trust us better if we can show these reasons by using their actual data.  This is the scenario that I really want to focus on and develop, which needs of course, the help of the analytic management solutions.  Once we have that in place, we can start to wrap our head around the whole weight issue, which I am looking forward to being part of, and in the same breath, not being part of.

Attribution – A Work in Progress

The discussion around the topic was not delved into deeply for good reason, we are not at this stage yet, and to expel words on it would be premature.  When it does happen, it will have one outcome because as an industry, we have to have it, but two possible paths.  We are either going to have all of the chips (weights) fall in place, or there are going to be mucho meetings between media disciplines hashing out their desires.  I pray for the first; I have too much work making my clients money in this economy, and have confidence that we can move away from the last click attribution model, because a multiple credit attribution model will allow marketing on a whole to become more integrated, allowing the client to win.  And when the client wins, we all win.

I do have one big complaint before I leave you to start your Multiple Attribution revolution, and it is with these discussions at conferences.  The good news is that we are having these discussions, but once we try to establish standards and best practices / guidelines, the phrase, “but it depends on the particular situation,” is always muttered at the end.  I need and the industry needs for someone to commit to some sort of standards.  I am sure we will get there, but it is hard to have patience.  I blame my instant gratification personality on TV and not the internet…