Are you Properly Measuring the Success of your Mobile Marketing?

Mobile is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy today. Smartphones and devices have quickly become an everyday necessity, and they are now a vital part of how we communicate in our daily lives. 

In 2014, the number of mobile devices globally hit 7.7 billion, which exceeded the number of people in the world; and the growth in mobile use is showing no signs of slowing down.

Now, over 40% of online transactions are carried out on mobile, and 51% of customers say that they use mobile devices to discover new brands and products. What’s more, 80% of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies with mobile sites or apps that help them easily answer their questions.

This trend has not gone unnoticed among digital marketers. Forrester Consulting recently released a report that highlighted the prominence of mobile marketing in today’s campaigns. According to the report, 86% of marketers consider mobile to play an important role in acquiring new customers. In addition, 77% of them said that mobile could help them to increase customer loyalty, which was found to be an important goal for marketers overall.

However, while mobile marketing adoption is high, the Forrester Consulting report found one big problem with mobile marketing: marketers are currently not using sufficient measurement practices.

Why Measuring Mobile Marketing Is Difficult

The average number of connected devices per consumer is 3.64. So, while 80% of Internet users today own a smartphone, most of them will also have a tablet, laptop and other devices that they connect to the Internet. This makes tracking difficult for digital marketers, as they will typically switch between their connected devices when they are interacting with a business online.

What does this mean for marketers? The customer journey is no longer as linear as it was previously and, as such, the traditional sales funnel is not as effective as it used to be in predicting the customer’s journey from awareness to sale.  Customers are interacting with businesses across a number of touchpoints, and digital marketers have to try to measure their efforts across a number of channels and devices if they want to know what channels and tactics are most effective in generating ROI.

This is relatively difficult and, currently, only 14% of marketers measure mobile at all phases of the customer journey. But how do you track customers across their journey and work out which acquisition channels are most effective? By applying multi-touch attribution models.

What Is Multi-Touch Attribution?

Multi-touch attribution considers all the touchpoints that contributed to the sale. This provides marketers with relevant data on the most effective channels and campaigns that they can then apply to increase the effectiveness of their overall strategy.

With multi-touch attribution, marketers get a clearer picture of the success of their channels and campaigns. Because they know which touchpoints are generating the most conversions, they can spend more budget on these touchpoints and work out how to make other touchpoints perform better, in order to improve overall ROI. 

What Are The Different Types Of Attribution?

There are a number of different attribution models that marketers can use to track their campaigns. The following models credit revenue to different touchpoints in the consumer journey.

• First Touch: First Touch attribution assigns 100% of the credit of the sale to the touchpoint that got the visitor to the website for the first time. This type of attribution emphasises the importance of the top-of-the-funnel channels that boost brand awareness.
• Last Touch: This is one of the simplest and most common models of attribution, as all credit for a sales opportunity is given to the last touchpoint a consumer interacts with.
• Linear Attribution: With linear attribution, each touchpoint that the consumer has interacted with on their journey is assigned equal credit. This is particularly effective in recognising all the channels that have had an impact on sale. 
• Time Decay: With time decay attribution, more credit is given to the touchpoints that occur closest to the conversion, as the model assumes these touchpoints have more influence on the purchase. 
• U Shaped Model: The U-Shaped model tracks every touchpoint, but assigns most of the credit to the first and last touchpoints, distributing the rest equally among the remaining ‘mid’ points.

There are several other types of attribution, but the above are the most common to help your business measure its online marketing efforts, particularly across mobile. For assistance with your digital marketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at Digital Squad.

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