What is Multi-touch Attribution?

Ruben Buijs

Founder & Digital Consultant

Written on Aug 1, 2023

2 minutes

Lead generation

Multi-touch attribution is a marketing strategy used to analyze and measure the impact of various touchpoints in a customer's journey towards a conversion or sale. In today's digital age, customers interact with businesses through multiple channels and devices before making a purchase. Multi-touch attribution helps marketers understand the effectiveness of each touchpoint in influencing a customer's decision.

Examples

Let's consider an example to illustrate how multi-touch attribution works. Imagine a customer who discovers a product through a Google search, then clicks on a Facebook ad to learn more, and finally makes a purchase after receiving an email promotion. In this scenario, multi-touch attribution would assign a value to each touchpoint to determine the contribution of Google search, Facebook ad, and email promotion in driving the sale.

Importance

Multi-touch attribution is crucial because it provides insights into the customer journey, allowing businesses to optimize their marketing efforts and allocate resources effectively. By understanding which touchpoints are most influential, marketers can refine their strategies, invest in the right channels, and improve overall campaign performance. This helps in maximizing return on investment (ROI) and generating more qualified leads.

How to Use Multi-touch Attribution

Implementing multi-touch attribution involves several steps:

  1. Define your customer journey: Map out the different touchpoints a customer may encounter before conversion. These touchpoints can include search engines, social media, email marketing, display ads, and more.
  2. Choose an attribution model: There are various attribution models available, such as first touch, last touch, linear, time decay, and position-based. Select the model that best aligns with your marketing goals and customer behavior.
  3. Collect data: Gather data from various sources like web analytics, CRM systems, and marketing automation platforms. Ensure that you have accurate and comprehensive data to analyze the customer journey.
  4. Assign values to touchpoints: Apply your chosen attribution model to assign appropriate values to each touchpoint. This helps in determining the impact of each touchpoint on the customer's decision-making process.
  5. Analyze and optimize: Analyze the attribution data to gain insights into the effectiveness of your marketing channels. Identify the touchpoints that contribute the most to conversions and optimize your marketing strategies accordingly.

Useful Tips for Multi-touch Attribution

  • Consider using a multi-touch attribution tool or software to streamline the process and automate data collection and analysis.
  • Regularly review and update your attribution model to account for changes in customer behavior and market dynamics.
  • Experiment with different attribution models to gain a comprehensive understanding of how touchpoints influence conversions.
  • Combine multi-touch attribution with other marketing analytics techniques, such as cohort analysis and customer lifetime value (CLV), for deeper insights into customer behavior.

FAQ

Multi-touch attribution is a marketing measurement model that helps businesses understand how various marketing channels and touchpoints contribute to customer conversions.
Multi-touch attribution is important because it provides a more accurate and comprehensive view of the customer journey, allowing businesses to allocate their marketing budgets effectively and optimize their campaigns.
Multi-touch attribution assigns credit to different marketing touchpoints along the customer journey, considering all the interactions a customer has with various channels before making a conversion. It helps identify which touchpoints are most influential in driving conversions.
Common models used in multi-touch attribution include linear attribution, time decay attribution, position-based attribution, and data-driven attribution. Each model has its own way of assigning credit to touchpoints.
Multi-touch attribution utilizes data from various sources such as web analytics, CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and ad platforms. These data sources provide insights into customer interactions across channels.
Yes, multi-touch attribution can work for businesses of all types and sizes. It is particularly beneficial for businesses with complex customer journeys involving multiple touchpoints across various channels.
Yes, multi-touch attribution has some limitations. It relies heavily on accurate and reliable data, which can sometimes be challenging to obtain. Additionally, it may not capture the full impact of offline marketing activities.
Businesses can implement multi-touch attribution by leveraging marketing attribution software or tools that help track and analyze customer interactions across channels. They can also work with marketing analytics experts to develop customized attribution models.
Using multi-touch attribution enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, optimize their marketing efforts, improve ROI, identify underperforming channels, and allocate their budgets effectively.
Absolutely! Multi-touch attribution provides insights into the effectiveness of different marketing touchpoints, allowing businesses to identify successful strategies and optimize their campaigns accordingly, leading to improved performance.

Article by

Ruben Buijs

Ruben, the founder of Boei, leverages over a decade of consultancy experience at Ernst & Young to optimize lead generation. Boei specializes in converting website visitors into qualified leads. Outside of work, Ruben is passionate about crossfit and enjoys gaming occasionally.

Table of contents

  1. Examples
  2. Importance
  3. How to Use Multi-touch Attribution
  4. Useful Tips for Multi-touch Attribution
  5. Related Terms

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