The convenience of ‘fake’ attribution
When IAG’s media director Willem Paling switched the insurer from attribution modelling to experiment testing, he found the company needed to invest less in online advertising and more in traditional media. Nicole McInnes at WW, formerly Weight Watchers, was told the same thing when she adopted a more holistic model as the brand’s new marketing director. Each brands’ focus on attribution modelling meant digital advertising’s success was being inflated when looking at sales, while longterm brand building, usually done by traditional platforms, was overlooked simply because it was harder to measure.
The flaws in attribution modelling have long been raised throughout the industry, yet its use remains widespread. Figures on its adoption vary, but according to a report sponsored by Google Analytics, released in 2012, 62% of marketers and 77% of agencies used attribution. This was from 607 responses around the globe. The report also found that last-click attribution was the most popular model, used by 54% of agencies and 54% of clients. The reason; because it was the most “readily available” model.
A joint AdNews and AdRoll 2016 study found that 66% of Australian marketers were using some form of attribution. This jumped to 90% the following year, according to a separate study by AdRoll. The study also found first-click and last-click were the most popular, at 44% and 28%, respectively.
“Everyone is happy with fake attribution,” says Melbourne Business School professor Nico Neumann speaking to AdNews about the current state of attribution modelling. The professor repeatedly labels the practice as “fake”. Like many critics, he rejects that attribution modelling offers valuable measurements for brands or marketers because rather than showing how effective advertising is by looking at incremental sales, it claims full credit of sales even in many cases when it shouldn’t claim any.
“We’ve published about this for years, that the rules don’t make any sense,” Nuemann says.
“But still, I would guess that a high percentage, probably 50%-80%, still use basic rules.”
Touch-based attribution models work by attributing a sale to an ad
