Get Ready to Rumble: Contribution vs. Attribution 

Tried and tested — there’s something to be said for placing your trust in a process that leads to an eventual outcome. There’s confidence in knowing that if you unfold this wrinkled map, you’ll reach your destination. But these days, even maps are complicated, with GPS- and machine learning-powered digital apps recommending the optimal route to take during rush hour — or warning you of construction five miles ahead. 

Figuring out which parts of your marketing spend yield the biggest results presents you, the marketer, with a similar choice. Do you stick with attribution or wade into contribution, the more complicated path to determining which channels lead to your desired outcomes? Are both approaches right for you? 

Attribution is a proven way to assess your marketing spend and the simplest method to explain to others. However, it falls short when multiple touchpoints and channels are involved, leading many professionals to question its suitability for modern ad campaigns. Multi-touch attribution (MTA) models provide a data-driven method of assigning credit or value to various campaign touchpoints. MTA can map a complete customer journey. 

Yet, some experts contend that MTA assigns too much value to the “last click” in the customer’s journey. Focusing on last-touch attribution — usually cookie-based — prevents understanding how other cookieless channels, such as Connected TV, drive audiences toward conversion.

Other options to consider, discussed below, steepen one rigorous requirement: data analytics. As a rule, applying more data leads to more detailed answers but also boosts cost and complexity. Accordingly, keep in mind the size of your project and the number of data points you intend to analyze. That factor will help you determine which method is most suitable for you.

Incrementality is a means of comparing the actions of customers exposed to your campaign against a control group that wasn’t. A marketer sets up a test in which they will start, stop, boost or reduce spending on a campaign to see how it moves the needle vs. a (blind) control group that doesn’t see any of the advertisements. The test may boil down to a hypothetical question: Would you have achieved the same number of conversions even if you hadn’t launched your digital out-of-home campaign? 

Conversion Contribution applies robust models and weighting to account for purchase or conversion process complexity. Using this new measurement approach, advertisers will know which ads drive incremental sales and which were simply along for the ride. We anticipate that, with the growing complexity of the media landscape, savvy marketers will retire old attribution models that drive less search and social money in favor of increasing investment in compelling channels like CTV.

Accurate measurement requires the best possible data

Regardless of your chosen attribution method, applying quality data will likely dictate your success or failure. Very often, first-party data doesn’t track the entire customer journey. So, picking the right data partners is an essential step. Marketers can gain a comprehensive view of the consumer journey, encompassing online interactions and offline conversions, by applying first-party data and, through Viant, insights from over 70 data partner integrations.

You’ll also need analytic tools that can deal with multiple sources of data and identifiers and get to the heart of the matter quickly and cost-effectively. 

Viant recommends that advertisers measure the attribution of ad exposure to conversions by focusing on households rather than individual devices. Through decades of big data management, we’ve learned that households paint the most precise picture of campaign performance and ROI. This level of granularity allows for better optimization of ad creative, placement and frequency, helping to maximize the impact of advertising efforts.

A household solution empowers advertisers to assess how individuals interact with content and ads across various screens. With this method, advertisers can hone targeting strategies optimized for an entire household’s viewing habits, leading to more personalized and cost-efficient advertising campaigns. 

Viant’s Household ID™ (HHID) technology cuts through the noise of the more than 1.5 billion IP addresses and other identifiers. It translates them into 115 million tangible, meaningful homes that marketers can reach with targeted advertising. HHID identifiers provide advertisers with reach and frequency reporting that shows which devices were reached in which homes and how often. 

Contribution and Attribution practitioners understand that each method has strengths and perceived limitations. Viant’s view is that Contribution is better adapted to the challenges of today’s complex media landscape. Household ID technology is foundational to the process of accurately mapping the customer journey and understanding media spend across multiple channels.