Multi-Touch Attribution / Touchpoint Analytics

Media fragmentation is increasing, the digital space is constantly evolving, and consumers interact with multiple screens and devices. Marketers need to understand the complex customer journey and be able to optimize digital executions for increased response. And while the concept of attribution and attributing credit across touchpoints and drivers are important, cross-channel or Multi-touch Attribution (MTA) has faced many challenges due to data access, walled gardens, and blind spots.

The MTA promise suggests that with user-level intelligence, organizations can use attribution to gain a complete picture of their customers’ activities to better target, capture the full customer journey, and measure the impact of campaigns. But this promise has been challenged by significant data blind spots for multi-touch attribution that are growing due to the challenges of data deprecation. Data deprecation is driven by many factors including the loss of third-party cookies, privacy concerns, government legislation, consumer sentiment, and walled gardens control.

Analytic Partners approaches attribution differently, and only when it makes sense for the client. Instead of multi-touch attribution or MTA, we leverage Touchpoint Analytics.

Analytic Partners has developed a patent-pending behavior-segmented probabilistic approach to attribution: that we call Touchpoint Analytics. Touchpoint Analytics was developed to address the data challenges marketers face including noisy data and missing channels/touchpoints from walled gardens and blind spots. This is achieved with a proprietary profiling algorithm that filters out noise with probabilistic discrete choice models. In addition, all models are validated for model strength through our unique validation matrix and Cooperative Game Theory calculates incremental conversion probability of each activity. Analytic Partners approach to attribution is privacy-safe and futureproofed.

We dive deeply into touchpoints when it makes sense for a client and when there is value to be gained. For many brands, attribution is unnecessary is there is a unified measurement framework in place.

While Touchpoint Analytics on its own may give you insights into specific addressable touchpoints, it cannot assess offline media spend or produce holistic ROI insights. Analytic Partners Touchpoint Analytics leverages foundational Commercial Mix Models to more accurately project to business ROIs as part of a Unified Measurement approach so that marketers can benefit from a holistic non-biased view of their business.

Touchpoint Analytics are built upon the Commercial Mix Analytics framework, a unified commercial decisioning system that incorporates brand, customer, operational and touchpoint analytics to provide strategic and tactical results with both granular customer and full business views. The focus of this approach is not limited to measuring how marketing programs perform but can also investigate deeply into granular beyond-marketing drivers and operational factors that contribute to the marketing performance outcomes.  It is a forward-looking modeling and decisioning framework that overcomes the limitations of other solutions such as multi-touch attribution or a top-down/bottom-up approach that combines MTA and MMM.

Touchpoint analytics, as a part of Unified Measurement, integrates strategic measurement with tactical analyses while taking into account both business and customer lenses, for a holistic view of your business. It results in consistent insights that reveal the incremental impact of spend across all media types. Rather than disparate results, you’ll get one version of the truth that goes above and beyond broken promises of multi-touch attribution.

MTA has not delivered on its promise to provide a 360-degree consumer view, campaign optimization, and a subsequent stronger ROI through turnkey technology.  While the value proposition is compelling and many brands and providers have given it a try, MTA has fallen short of delivering on its promises. Multitouch Attribution is developing a reputation for failure – including a negative NPS score, year after year. Data deprecation and privacy concerns have continued to make the concept of cross-channel attribution even more challenging. Given the incredible data restrictions and subsequent blind spots, brands require an attribution solution to address today’s measurement and decisioning needs.  We need to move measurement beyond MTA to a solution that addresses the uncertainty of today and is also futureproofed for tomorrow. Analytic Partner’s Commercial Mix with Touchpoint Analytics is that solution.