Marketing Attribution Problematic
michel.bruley@teradata.com
Extract from various presentations: RPM Direct, Kevin Hillstrom, Teradata Aster, …
September 2012
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Marketing Channels and Attribution
Mail
TV
Print
www.decideo.fr/bruley
TM Quote
TM Sale
Marketing Channels and Attribution
Mail
TV
TM Quote
TM Sale
Web Quote
Web Sale
Print
Search
Aggregator
Banner
email
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Marketing Channels and Attribution
Mail
TV
TM Quote
TM Sale
Web Quote
Web Sale
Print
Search
Aggregator
Banner
email
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Marketing Channels and Attribution
Mail
TV
TM Quote
TM Sale
Web Quote
Web Sale
Print
Search
Aggregator
Banner
email
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Marketing Channels and Attribution
Putting Response in Correct “Bucket”
Putting Sales in Correct “Bucket”
Calculating Media Cost per Sale
Spending Next Tactical Marketing Dollar
Building Media Specific Targeting Models
Making Strategic Business Decisions
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Channel Attribution Methodology
• Individual Customer Identification Numbers
• Marketing Source Codes
• Name and Address Match
• Factor Analysis
• Dynamic Time Series Regression
• Proportionately “Factor” Leftovers into Marketing
Channels
www.decideo.fr/bruley
What is a latent conversion
www.decideo.fr/bruley
What’s wrong with Google Analytics?

ROI is attributed to the last (latent) referrer (Most recent keyword, ad,
email, blog etc.) What’s wrong with most recent?
– Shoppers initiate search using broad categories
– Later narrow down to product names/IDs
– Perhaps then narrow to store brand

Broad categories don’t get the credit they (may) deserve

The only exception is direct type-in

Google Analytics takes the blame, though many web analytics tools work
the same in a default implementation
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Attribution examples
Quiz: An existing customer receives a catalog on September 1. On September 2, the
customer uses Google to search for merchandise, visits your website, and purchases
an item. What % of the order do you allocate to catalogs, to search, and to organic
brand loyalty?
Quiz: An existing customer receives a catalog on September 1, receives e-mail
marketing campaigns on September 7 and September 9, and purchases on your
website on September 10, buying merchandise featured in your catalog and
merchandise available only online. What % of the order do you allocate to catalogs, email, and to organic brand loyalty?
Quiz: An existing customer receives a catalog on August 1, and receives 17 e-mail
marketing messages between 8/1 and 10/1. On 10/4, the customer uses Google to
search for merchandise, visits, and buys an item. What % of the order do you allocate
to catalogs, to e-mail, to search, and to organic brand loyalty?
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Test + Results = Attribution Rules
The beautiful thing about catalog marketing and e-mail marketing is that
you can test, you can see what happens to other channels when you do not
mail a catalog, when you do not send an e-mail campaign!
Sample 80,000 twelve-month buyers with a valid e-mail address.
Group 1 = 20,000: Catalogs = Yes, E-Mail = Yes
Group 2 = 20,000: Catalogs = Yes, E-Mail = No
Group 3 = 20,000: Catalogs = No, E-Mail = Yes
Group 4 = 20,000: Catalogs = No, E-Mail = No
Execute for a month, quarter, season, or year!
In a controlled experiment, the results of your test tell you what impact
catalog marketing and e-mail marketing have on other channels (search,
mobile, social, display ads, affiliates), so you can set up reasonable
attribution rules!
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Some Results
We have four test panels in this test. We sent one catalog and nine email campaigns during a one-month timeframe
www.decideo.fr/bruley
What Is The Organic Percentage?
The organic percentage is possibly the most important metric a direct
marketer / catalog brand can track. It is the percentage of demand that will
be generated if no marketing exists.
What about our example?
Take the $5.80 generated in the
no catalogs / no e-mail test panel,
and divide it by the $11.37
generated in the catalogs + e-mail
test panel.
The result is 51%.
www.decideo.fr/bruley
13
A 51% Organic Percentage
We must execute catalog and e-mail mail/holdout test panels, in order to
properly estimate what our organic percentage is.
• When the organic percentage is < 20%, your matchback/allocation process
is generally accurate.
• When the organic percentage is > 40%, matchbacks and allocation programs
become increasingly inaccurate.
Does The Organic Percentage Vary?
• Some customers are “highly organic”, while other customers require “large
amounts of marketing”. There are HUGE profit opportunities in knowing
this difference!
• Customers who mail orders to a company or use the telephone to order
require advertising.
• Customers who combine catalogs and online channels are a “hybrid”,
requiring much less advertising.
• Customers who order online or in stores are highly organic, you can reduce
advertising!
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Key Takeaways
Have the courage to execute both catalog mail/holdout tests and e-mail
mail/holdout tests. Test four panels, test for a quarter or season or year if you can.
The results are going to be breathtaking!.
Catalogs: In many cases, orders that would have happened anyway are attributed
to catalogs, causing us to spend way too much money mailing catalogs.
E-Mail: E-Mail is frequently cannibalized by catalogs. E-Mail frequently causes
Search/Mobile orders to happen.
Search: Search is often the outcome of catalog marketing or e-mail marketing.
Social/Mobile: In the early stages of a channel, sales are frequently cannibalized
from existing channels, or the existing channels cause the sale to happen in the
new channel. Over time, new channels become “organic”, and do not require oldschool channels in order to create sales on their own. Tests can validate this.
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Multi-Channel Customer Analysis
•
Business Question(s):
• Prior to new product additions?
Is there any identifiable pattern of behavior prior to account closure?
• If so, what does this pattern look like?
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Value of Aster Data for Digital Marketing
Aster Data Analysis
•
•
•
Click-stream
•
# of visitors, visitor location, browser type
•
Last click analysis
Online behavior
•
Common interaction behaviors
•
Optimal paths through website
Where to place this button, link, etc.
•
Search Optimization
Multi-channel (online &
offline) campaign analysis
-
Mix of paid per click and organic
•
Which search terms drive traffic, behaviors
Advertising Optimization
•
Conversion
Complete customer
interaction history
Marketing return on
investment
•
•
•
•
A/B testing
•
•
+ Teradata Adds…
•
How to optimize advertising placement
•
Where are shopping carts abandoned & why
Attribution + cost of
conversion
Marketing Attribution
•
What % credit to give each referring channel or
campaign
www.decideo.fr/bruley
+ Aprimo Adds…
• Campaign management
-
Take action to influence
behaviors
• Marketing Resource
Management
-
Take action to optimize
marketing spend
Attribution Using Aster
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Aster nPath Identifies the “Last Mile”
All interaction patterns evaluated in a single pass
userID
10001
Prepares multi-structured data
•
20001
Stitches rows together by customer in a
time-ordered view
Aster MapReduce
Platform
event
time
userID
event
time
10001
10001
20001
20001
10001
20001
Scans all records to produce a complete
set of paths
Step 1: Pivot data via nPath
SQL-MapReduce
•
No need to define patterns in advance
custID
channel1
… channeln
time1
… timen
•
Fully parallelized for top performance
using MapReduce where SQL falls down
10001
Online Retail
… Research
products
12:00 PM
1/1/2010
… 3:00 PM
2/15/2010
20001
Store Purchase
… BankX Credit
Card
1:45 PM
1/1/2010
… 12:20 PM
2/22/2010
Summarize output for business
exploration
•
Rank order the most popular paths and yet
represent the long tail too
www.decideo.fr/bruley
Step 2: Run nPath SQLMapReduce Java Logic
Total # of Customers
channel1
…
channeln
35
Online Retail
…
Research products
26
Store Purchase
…
BankX Credit Card
Aster nPath example: Account Closure
www.decideo.fr/bruley