In the modern world, consumers are exposed to a company through a various media. Companies want to know which specific advertisement brought in a new client, however it is often much more complicated than that.

Marketers try to use a number of ways to track the effectiveness of different advertisements, one of which is marketing attribution.

Marketing attribution is a way of crediting a specific medium for a purchase. The goal is to discover which media are responsible for generating the most business. How does marketing attribution work? Marketers will look at the various ways a client has been exposed to the company prior to purchase.

Advanced attribution models proportionally distribute credit to the different media a customer has been exposed to. However, many marketers use simpler models where credit is only given to the first or last medium a client was exposed to. For example, let’s say I am thinking about moving and am starting to look for a real estate agent to help me.

Now the decision to move is more often than not a long process where I am going to spend months doing research into the real estate market. I might read real estate magazines and blogs and begin visiting different websites to find a broker. By the time I decide on an agent, I will have become familiar with he or she through a variety of mediums - I might not be able to remember where I first heard of the realtor. Maybe I have seen ads in the newspaper, the Internet, on TV or seen names on for sale signs.

Which marketing effort was most effective? A specific newspaper or digital ad? Or a combination of different media? It is pretty much impossible to come up with an exact formula that says 15 percent of my decision was based on a blog post, 22.5 percent was based on a bus ad I saw, 12 percent was based on a TV ad, and 30 percent was based on an article I saw on the realtor in the local paper and so on. Advanced marketing attribution models try to distribute value in this way to determine the most cost effective advertising efforts. The reality is a variety of marketing channels can be attributed to bringing your company new business.

Knowing which efforts are the most effective is something that a company will only learn from experience. Marketing attribution and other similar models are not perfect. We all want to know what is most effective but oftentimes it is a variety of media that will be most effective in bringing your company new clients. Advertising is not an exact science no matter how much we would like it to be. Hiring a full-service marketing agency is key in coordinating your advertising efforts and ensuring that you are distributing a consistent, high-quality message across your various marketing channels.

Keenability is a concierge-style full-service marketing agency in Boca Raton. Keen's capabilities include branding, logo design, brand identity, advertising, online marketing, email marketing, media planning, website design and development, content strategy, social media, and search engine optimization. The best part we do it with a smile.

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