• Blog
  • Jul 05, 2017
  • By Jeff Keenan
3 Steps to Get Started With Attribution

Marketing attribution enables marketers to know exactly which marketing efforts are resulting in new customer acquisition. Here are three easy and simple steps to get started with attribution today.

Attribution is expected to play a huge role in future marketing and business strategy. Check out these mind blowing marketing attribution stats. Attribution is the future.

The possibilities of attribution are endless. 360 degree insights on customer behavior and its impact on the bottom line is likely to inform major strategic shifts in companies in the near future.

It’s an exciting forecast, but it may cause you to become anxious. And we don’t blame you. When the possibilities are endless, where do you start? When the world is opening up around you, which direction do you go?

It’s a luxury problem, but a problem nonetheless. Moreover, if you know that your future company strategy can become a success by relying on marketing attribution, then stakes have become cripplingly high.

From quick wins to big wins

Take a breath. We’re here to help. To create big wins in the end, you have to create quick wins right from the start. This article will help you achieve your first tangible, measurable attribution results. It will make marketers in your team more excited about attribution.

We’ll explain what you’re working towards for the future and will also list things you can do right now to see quick results. It will make working towards a full-blown attribution driven marketing strategy a lot less daunting.

What the marketing attribution experts do

The most seasoned attribution specialists manage to do the following things…

  • Combine lots of conversion pixels into one overview
  • Measure lots of individual touchpoints
  • Make complex decisions based on little data

But that is not how they started! They started out with three simple steps. It is a list that no expert ever shared with you. Why don’t they mention it? Because it is embarrassingly simple…

With our list you can work your way up gradually, so that starting out with attribution becomes really easy.

How to start with marketing attribution in 3 easy steps

Start with our check list below and end up using the specialist checklist. We’ve conveniently listed these three easy steps. Please grab a chair.

  1. Just track everything – With a universal conversion tracking pixel.
  2. Aggregate detail – Group only a few touchpoints.
  3. Sit back… – Wait for patterns to surface.

Follow these tips, and you can be sure your first attribution steps will be a success.

1. Just track everything

To get a complete picture of what influences a prospect to notice your brand, leading all the way up to a purchase, you need to observe behavior across the different channels.

More experienced attribution specialists measure multiple touchpoints. They often do so using multiple tracking pixels, which requires them to make decisions before collecting any data. What do we want to know? Which data do we need? Which specific pixel should be used to track which channel?

But when you’re just starting out with attribution, you shouldn’t need to figure what you want to track: just track every single touchpoint.

“What? Everything touchpoint?”, you think. Yes, in reality that is easier done than said with a universal conversion tracking pixel.

How to start? – Get a universal tracking pixel

Nowadays, even the most elementary tracking initiatives require you to install more than one tracking pixel. Having to combine multiple pixels into a single set of results is a challenge for even the most seasoned attribution specialists. Instead, install a universal conversion tracking pixel, like the one from LeadsRx. It will pick up 100% of your in-bound marketing programs to automatically identify touchpoints important to your attribution modeling.

You won’t fully understand what you can do with the abundance of information that’s coming in, at first. But you can decide where to focus later on, once you understand what you’re harvesting.

As time passes, you can become ever more selective about what you don’t need to track. 

2. Aggregate detail

When you really want to transform your business based on what attribution can bring to the table, you’ll eventually need to measure every single touchpoint. But that doesn’t mean you want to see 300 different touchpoints if you have 300 different ads running on Google. Instead, successful first steps mean aggregating touchpoint detail to a level that’s important to you.

A couple of well-chosen aggregate groups will give you the insights you need.  

How to start? – Group only a few touchpoints

Nowadays, every company measures many things at once. Try grouping touchpoints into a limited number, without all the detail behind them.

For example, if you’re advertising on AdWords, track “all AdWords campaigns” together as a unit to get started, instead of tracking hundreds of different ad designs.

As you learn every day from now on, you can find ways to increase the depth and detail of the data you gather.

3. Sit back…

Companies that have been working with attribution can easily make sense of new fragments of data coming in.

More experienced attribution specialists know how data fragments collected over a short period fit into the bigger picture.

But when you’re just starting out, you don’t have that frame of reference yet. Allowing for some time to collect your first data can make it easier to get started with attribution.

How to start? – Wait for patterns to surface

Wait before making decisions. Nowadays, companies are tempted to make decisions before they know what’s going on. Try to fight the urge, and wait a few weeks for the data to come in.

You won’t get the full benefits of attribution if you make important decisions based on inadequate, fragmented data. Before you make changes to you advertising mix, let things settle a bit.

As you learn, you can start to see more patterns and trends in an ever-growing dataset. Then take action. Those actions will be very impact-full.

Iterate these 3 steps and you’ll be the expert soon

That was easier than you thought, wasn’t it. Are you ready to take action? Do these 3 things:

  • Install the LeadsRX Universal Conversion Tracking Pixel – collect all data with one installment
  • Group only a few touchpoints – conveniently track multiple campaigns together
  • Sit back and wait – collect plenty of data to see patterns and make well-advised decisions.

Let’s get started with attribution in the easiest way possible. Try LeadsRx now.