Attribution has been a steadily growing buzz word around online measurement. In simple terms, attribution involves recognizing the value that each interaction has in driving towards an end goal or conversion. For example, someone may first become aware and interact with your brand through Facebook, they may then read some of your brand's blog posts before checking out your product pages on your website, which may lead them towards a purchase. All of these interactions (not just the final website click) played an important role in driving towards a purchase, and should be accounted for when looking at how programs, content and channels are performing online. While there is no agreed upon method or tool to calculate attribution just yet, many frameworks and whitepapers have been published on the topic. It seems that Google may help us get that much closer (without having to perform quite so many manual calculations). A couple of weeks ago Google released a new product offering for multi-channel measurement to run alongside their widely adopted Google Analytics platform. The new offering now allows marketers to see which channels initiate, assist, and complete conversions. This way you can measure how all of your digital channels perform against your goals and see the full picture of your digital programs.
I'm not saying that this is the end all, be all, but it will definitely give marketers an easier way of understanding how their programs are performing, what is working well and what may need to be changed. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming months to delve further into the subject of attribution.
Are you using it yet? What do you think?