How to get the most out of your campaign attribution models

Do you know which campaigns work the best? Or how to measure their effectiveness? That’s where marketing attribution models come in. These models enable you to get the most out of your marketing budget; but just like how there are many different marketing campaigns, there are also many different campaign attribution models. You need to employ the model—or models—that work best for your organization and help achieve your marketing and sales goals.

Ask the right questions to find the right attribution models

Before you settle on any of the various marketing attribution models, there are a few things you need to consider: 

• What is the ultimate goal of your attribution program?
• Who is looking at your results? 
• Where is the focus on your marketing funnel? 

Answering these questions gives you the ability to create an outline of the goals you want to achieve with your attribution models, as well as the metrics to measure your success. This is an integral step in the process of choosing between campaign attribution models as it gives you a good idea about how this choice can best help your company meet its topline goals.

Make sure your data is ready for attribution

Your data must be in good shape before you can even start thinking about implementing one or more attribution models. If you have lots of duplicate leads and contacts, many important campaigns won’t be associated with your opportunities. If you have inconsistent campaign statuses that indicate what a campaign’s success looks like, your attribution models won’t be accurate. 

The bottom line is that your data has to be clean, accurate, and correctly segmented. Remember, if you put bad data into your model, it’s just going to give you bad results in return.

Don’t settle for just one attribution model

Once you’ve identified the goals of your marketing campaign attribution program and cleaned up your data, it’s time to choose the right attribution models for your organization. There are more than a dozen different models out there, and each has its pros and cons. That’s why you need to gather all the right information before you make your final decision. 

But the most important thing to keep in mind? You don’t have to settle for just one campaign attribution model. For example, you can use simple attribution models that measure just the first touch or last touch of your campaigns that show just a glimpse of the real data behind your marketing efforts. You can also use multi-touch models, time-based models, or models that give you a more well-rounded assessment of each opportunity that’s created. Choosing one type of model over another means you’re getting only part of the picture, and there’s no rule that says you have to use one specific model.

“Simultaneous modeling” makes it easy to quickly and safely test out several models at the same time, giving you all the benefits of different attribution models while avoiding the pitfalls present in each. Simultaneous modeling enables you to see what’s working and what needs to change, and gives you the ability to tailor attribution models for your organization’s specific needs. You can perform simultaneous modeling with a RevOps automation platform to ensure you get the right data at the right time. 

What’s next?

You can get the most out of your marketing campaign attribution models by determining what goals you need to achieve, cleaning up your data, and choosing the right combination of models that most closely align with your business needs. If you’d like to learn more about each of these steps and take an in-depth look at the marketing attribution models available today, download our latest white paper, 14 cutting edge attribution models and why we recommend none of them.

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