Resolving the online-offline attribution challenge

Category: Marketing attribution

91% of marketers recognise the importance of attribution to demonstrate results, justify spend and optimise their marketing campaigns further. This means that there’s an ever-increasing need for clear attribution strategies to prove the offline impact of your inbound marketing activity.

To amplify the potential of call tracking technology, here we talk about some of our more advanced features for gaining improved marketing insight and bridging the online-to-offline attribution gap.

What is marketing attribution?

Marketing attribution simply means to give credit to the correct marketing channel for a conversion or sale. Correctly attributing sales to the true source enables you to measure your cost per acquisition (CPA) more accurately and gain a better understanding of your marketing ROI.

Track your customers from source to sale

Mediahawk’s built-in attribution features enable you to link revenue to a phone call and directly back to marketing spend.

There are a number of ways that Mediahawk allows you to track and attribute leads and sales:

In-call attribution

This sends the Call ID or the caller’s telephone number directly to your phone system, allowing your screen-popping software to display the unique ID that the sales agent can record in your CRM.

Mid-call attribution

This feature enables your call handlers to key in a value or categorise a call while the caller is on hold. The call continues after the operator has finished keying in the information.

Post-call attribution

This allows your call handler to use the telephone keypad to score and categorise the call or enter a sales value after the caller has disconnected their call.

Give credit where credit is due

It’s crucial to take a holistic approach to attribution, especially with online.

For example, think of a first time visitor to your website. They’re looking for a particular item and doing some research. They type in their keyword, click on your Google AdWords campaign and make a call to find out some details. A couple of days later, they’ve made their decision to buy from you. They search for your company name this time, click your link in the organic search results, call you and make a purchase.

Which source would you attribute that conversion to?

The most widely-used attribution model is where credit is given to the last click before a sale or conversion. In the above example, this would be Organic. However, measuring the last click on its own simply doesn’t take into account the many touchpoints that influence your customers’ journey.

If the visitor in our example above hadn’t clicked on your PPC ad first, would they have come back to you to make a purchase?
Does this change your mind about how you would have attributed the sale to begin with?

Using dynamic call tracking, Mediahawk’s first / last click attribution feature shows your calls and visitors by first and last click sources. This detailed report enables you to identify precisely which online marketing sources are driving enquiries and sales.

More advanced marketing attribution

If you want to get started using these and our other attribution features – or have other attribution challenges you’d like help with – get in touch to talk to one of our experts.

About the author - Natalia Selby

Marketing Executive at Mediahawk, with 20 years experience in analytics and content management.

You might also be interested in

How to identify what’s generating poor-quality leads in your PPC ad campaigns

Every pay-per-click (PPC) marketer will have experience with poor-quality leads. Whether you have leads engaging about a service or product you don’t…

The dealership’s guide to creating an effective electric vehicle marketing strategy

The shift towards sustainable transportation is gaining momentum. The government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate has set an ambitious target, requiring manufacturers…

Marketing agencies: Improve your performance with call tracking

Looking for ways to improve your performance as a marketing agency? In the complex web of touchpoints that forms the customer journey,…