Guest Blog - Helen Southgate asks 'Is the Affiliate Industry Ready for Attribution Models?'

It was revealed through Econsultancy this week that Vodafone have launched with TagMan to enable them to understand the contribution of all of their channels.  This is something that I know many other Advertisers are looking as across not just online but all marketing channels.  It is indeed the holy grail of marketing to understand the true value of each channel.

However, I would question the feasibility of truly understanding a customer’s journey to purchase and in my opinion any attribution data should be approached with caution. If I think about my own personal journey in a purchase making decision, they could well include many if not all of the following touch points:

• iPhone
• Blackberry
• iPad
• Work desktop
• Home laptop
• Tube poster
• Billboard at train station

I could go on, but the list is huge.  There is therefore a large probability that the consumer would not have followed through their online journey on just one cookie – which is the fundamental floor in attribution tracking, it assumes everything a consumer did was in that one cookie.  This will only get more and more unlikely as our habits of consuming media and advertising develop.

Despite this, I am a huge advocate of understanding attribution as long as you do not assume this is gospel.  It is a guide, and a much better guide than simply looking at the last click.

So, as more and more advertisers take the first easier step of looking at attribution tracking across online sales, where does this leave the affiliate channel?

In every online marketing channel there will be winners and losers.  For example, in search, some keywords may actually be much more expensive than assumed whereas others could hold a lot more value.  In display, some partners could be adding a lot more value in terms of driving awareness that they are credited for.  The same will apply to affiliates, some will win and some will lose and this will differ from sector and advertiser.

Those that think that reward sites and voucher sites will be “found out” I think will be in for a shock.  Those that believe that they are only “trumped” by other channels or affiliates will be in for a shock as well as they will see that they are most likely “helped” as much as they are “trumped”. 

For me, attribution tracking isn’t about deciding if someone is a winner or a loser, if you look at it like this you may as well stick with the last click model as I can say with much confidence that it will even out to be in exactly the same place anyway.  Attribution is about understanding what happened if you feed more marketing budget into the top of the funnel, where does it come out and if you fill up the top of the funnel how many more sales does it drive tomorrow and 30 days later?  How can you optimise to ensure a good and successful customer journey?

This is where I think affiliates stand to benefit, if they are seen to be adding significant value along the path to sale then they may well find they are given more investment, whether this is an increase in CPA or another method of payment it could open up significant opportunities and increase ROI.

Helen Southgate is Sky’s Online Marketing Controller for Strategy & Planning and former chair of the IAB's Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC) www.twitter.com/HelenMarie21