Attributing revenues to marketing touchpoints is one of marketers’ most challenging yet vital tasks. Read on to learn how marketers are approaching the journey to holistic attribution.

Understanding how marketing touchpoints contribute to revenues is one of marketers’ most challenging yet vital tasks. Being able to demonstrate this contribution can turn marketing from a cost center into an investment that effectively drives market share gains for a business. Even with the rise of digital advertising, attribution has remained difficult at best—but more marketers continue to work on the problem.

In this Meet the Analyst Webinar, Nicole Perrin, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, examined the biggest challenges in ad measurement and revenue attribution today, and how marketers are confronting them.

Attribution in Affiliate. As a performance-based channel, affiliate marketing has traditionally relied on last-click attribution. And for the most part, last-click remains the standard attribution model in the affiliate channel.

Major changes are coming to how advertisers and others in the ecosystem can identify users across channels and devices. The loss of third-party cookies and changes to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA)—rumored to roll out this month—will affect ad addressability, but also measurement and attribution. Advertisers are taking steps in response, including more emphasis on first-party data, data collaborations, and modeling-based approaches.

Why can't I run my own attribution with my own postback data?”. Why it matters: Thus far, SKAdNetwork hasn’t been a useful alternative to the IDFA due to the limited amount of accessible information for marketers.

The majority (86%) agreed at least somewhat that cross-platform TV measurement and attribution was a leading priority for their company or clients. But 57% said that the accuracy of cross-platform measurement and attribution was one of the biggest challenges of converged TV advertising, suggesting a disconnect between what clients want and what TV companies actually offer.

Further, while last-click attribution models are still a common choice, it wasn’t long ago when they were the only choice. While last-click is still the norm, content partners and influencers are bringing incredible, measurable value to the channel thanks to advances in attribution and reward logic that help them earn the credit they deserve for their role in introducing consumers.

“That could be having some impact on performance, though most advertisers I’ve spoken with believe it’s primarily an attribution problem,” Schomer said. By the numbers: Even in light of the whistleblower news, our upcoming Facebook ad revenue forecast won’t be making any big downward adjustments.

Activate the SKAdNetwork for attribution and measurement. Approach attribution in the absence of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Effectively leverage first-party data in the post-iOS 14.5 world. Plus! See what the future of measurement looks like for personal finance and investing app Stash. Presenters:. Chad Greenleaf is senior vice president, client services at AppsFlyer.

Our two-part attribution series focuses on holistic attribution. It explores best practices for implementing attribution at the organizational level and balancing channel- and company-level KPIs.

The rise of large, integrated TV and consumer data sets has advanced more precise targeting through DDL products and the ability to assess the impact that specific TV networks, dayparts, programs, and creative executions via attribution measurement. DDL and attribution source TV audience data come from millions of homes, but there’s no way to know which household members are actually watching.

In an October 2020 survey from marketing tech consultancy DemandLab and marketing research firm Ascend2, marketing professionals said data quality was the primary barrier to successful revenue attribution. That’s significant considering that more than 84% of US companies with at least 100 employees will use some form of a digital attribution model this year, according to eMarketer’s report.