How to be less wrong: Getting Attribution Right in Online Marketing
To be less wrong, we have to move away from the idea of an absolute truth in online marketing measurability. An important first step is to know the limits of the tools we use. We then have to explore the world beyond the last click to learn more about how users interact with our channels. There are "absolute" numbers everywhere we look - in the AdWords interface, in Google Analytics, in MailChimp Reports, in the spreadsheets we share with our colleagues etc. Preconceived information has a very strong gravitational force and we need to constantly challenge ourselves to remember that this is not the absolute, technical truth. Last but not least, attribution also has an impact on your organization: To succeed with attribution means to also anticipate political risks associated with shifting the way you measure and report performance, in order to then leverage the insights of this new mindset. This holds especially true if your team's compensation is linked to the last-click model. -- This is the edited version of the talk Tobias Zehnder (Co-Founder Webrepublic) gave at the Google Attribution Event Amsterdam on March 13, 2014.
