emarketer webinar: demystifying mobile attribution

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Demystifying Mobile Attribution

Cathy Boyle

Senior Analyst, Mobile

October 8, 2015


Agenda

Defining attribution

The state of mobile attribution

Methods and models applied

Five missing links with mobile

Two unique elements to consider

The value of mobile (three brand examples)


A Working Definition of Attribution:

A method of assigning credit to a particular marketing

interaction, brand touchpoint or channel in order to

quantify the contribution that interaction, touchpoint or

channel makes toward a desired business goal


The State of Mobile

Attribution


Marketing is as fractured across devices as

consumers’ attention

Data from Google’s servers indicates, “90% of people use multiple screens

sequentially to accomplish a task.”

Source: July 2015 interview with Surojit Chatterjee, Product Management Director, Mobile Search Ads and AdSense for Search, Google.


Marketers are unsure how to assign credit to

mobile marketing and media touchpoints

“The way people transition between

devices and mediums really puts a

strain [on resources]. Our analysis

shows consumers have to see

something four times before they take

action on it. How do we value

each one of those

engagements? It's increasingly

difficult.”

—Gabriella Weinstein, senior mobile product

marketing manager at Rue La La


As a result, attribution has become downright

difficult

Many marketers

are not

measuring the

performance of

mobile, let alone

tackling

attribution

Roughly half

of those

polled were

NOT

measuring

mobile

engagement

or return on

investment


The limited ability to track mobile ROI is holding

marketers back from increasing mobile budgets


But it’s not impossible to measure and assign

credit to mobile, along with other channels

“I get that it’s hard. But it’s whining.

Competitive advantage never came

from having perfect information. The

opportunity for brands to get a

leg up on their competitors is

now [before models and systems are

perfected].”

—Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing

Association (MMA)


Attribution Methods Used

When Mobile Is Part of the

Marketing Mix


Mobile’s contribution can’t be measured in a

vacuum

“Doing any kind of attribution in a silo

is a huge mistake because you miss a

large part of what is driving user behavior.

You have to look at attribution

holistically in order to get a good view of

the value of all your media.”

—Phil Gross, vice president of product

management at Visual IQ, an attribution provider


Marketers are blending two attribution methods

To quantify the contribution made by mobile, along with other channels

and devices, marketers typically employ two approaches:

1. Top-Down Modeling (marketing/media-mix modeling)

– Input media spend for all channels, formats, gross rating points (GRPs), print exposures and

other marketing impressions into a model

– Can add in additional data points, including sales or external influences

2. Bottom-Up Modeling (path analysis)

– Typically used to attribute digital advertising channels and formats, often down to the impression

or ad creative level

– Used as a means to optimize campaigns in as close to real time as possible

– Used as a means of justifying and planning future buys


Two “crediting” methods are used for path

analysis—one simplistic, the other complex

1. Last-click attribution: An approach that assigns all conversion

credit to the last marketing touchpoint a consumer interacted with

prior to taking a desired action

2. Multitouch attribution: An approach that allocates credit

proportionally to marketing touchpoints a consumer interacted with

across platforms, channels and devices prior to the desired action


Last-touch attribution is the most prevalent

method used for assigning credit to mobile

“We value and see the market moving

toward a multitouch attribution

model. The reality is the industry is a ways

out from being able to support that from an

infrastructure and a billing perspective.

… It’s going to be a while before the

industry is really able to handle that model

on a broad basis.”

—Justin Landis, director of content marketing for

mobile attribution provider Kochava


Five Missing Links and

Two Unique Elements


Mobile attribution difficulties stem from the

absence of five key elements

1. A single identifier to serve as a proxy for a person

2. Broad-scale access to impression-level data

3. Large-scale campaigns and large budgets, which produce

large data sets for performance analysis

4. Clarity on the right metrics to measure

5. Websites as the primary destination and point of sale


In addition, two unique elements in mobile need

to be considered when it comes to attribution

1. The app stores as gatekeepers

2. Phone calls as an integral means of response

Examples bring the challenges and solutions to life…


Example Goal: Raise Brand Awareness

Target audience: Mobile mothers ages 24 to 35

Media Mix: Mobile display ads served in-app and

on mobile websites

Devices: Smartphones and tablets

Three key performance indicators (KPIs):

Visits to the Love-Me-Feed-Me mobile website

Visits to the Love-Me-Feed-Me app

Reach and frequency of brand exposures among

that target audience

Company:

Pet food manufacturer

(fictitious)

Image source: Clipart Panda

Love Feed


Challenge #1:

Conducting path

analysis without the

comfort of cookies

In-App ID Web ID

Mobile has unique app and web ID’s

To report accurate reach, frequency of

exposure and clickthroughs, app and mobile

web ID’s need to be “stitched”

together

Exception: Publishers with user-generated

ID’s that span channels

User ID

Others


Challenge #2:

Mothers likely

use both a

smartphone

and tablet

58% of US

smartphone users

also use a tablet,

according to eMarketer

estimates Smartphone

ID’s

Tablets

ID’s


Challenge #3:

More limited

sharing of

impression-level

data in mobile

vs. desktop

Number of viewable impressions

served prior to the last click

…when they were served

…to which sites or apps

…to which device IDs

“Brands care about different

metrics, not just click. They

want to understand the

effects of exposure

data, and there are

challenges today around

measuring that in mobile.”

—Rob Friedlander, co-founder

and CMO of Phluant Mobile, an

advertising solutions provider

Not always

provided


Mobile differs from desktop in the number of

firms with Media Ratings Council accreditation

“Yes, mobile impression data is hard.

The proof is that only one company has

been MRC accredited to deliver and

count [display, rich media and

video impressions and clicks]

correctly in mobile over the last two

years.”

—Richy Glassberg, CEO of Medialets,

an MRC-accredited buy-side ad server for mobile

display, rich media and video impressions


Example Goal: Drive App Downloads

Company:

Boutique Hotel Chain

(fictitious)


CuteSpot

Target audience: Recent first-time guests

Media Mix: Paid and owned mobile media

and marketing

Two KPIs:

The number of installs generated by the target

audience

The number of bookings made from the new

app users


Challenge #1:

The app store

being in the

middle of the

conversion

process

To properly credit the

source of the install:

The ID detected from the

ad is, in most cases,

matched against the ID

detected when the app is

first opened

CuteSpot Install Now

Get Two

Free Nights

in Paradise

Suggested AppAd Tracking

via:

App ID

Web ID

Probabilistic

ID

Install Tracking

via:

App ID

Google

Referrer

(Android)

No tracking within

the app stores


Challenge #2:

Understanding

the influence

of the app’s

profile in the

app store

At this point, the affect

the app profile has on

conversion rates of

app-install ads is not

directly quantifiable

CuteSpot Boutique Hotel

Bequia, Grenadines


Challenge #3: The scope of analysis is often

limited to purchases made only in the app

“Through reporting mechanisms

advertisers can connect

all the dots. So if the [app]

user goes on to make a

purchase on the website or in

the store, they can report that

back to us and have that

included in the data about that

user.”

To gauge the true value of

the install and the media

source, all bookings

made post-install need

to be taken into

consideration

—Daniel Kahtan, director of sales and

business development at AppsFlyer, a

mobile app attribution provider


Example Goal: Increase sales

Company:

Home goods retailer

(fictitious)


Nest Nuggets

Target audience: Recent buyers

Media Mix: Paid and owned mobile media and

marketing

Two KPIs:

Increase mobile commerce sales from their mobile

storefronts (mobile website and app)

Increase in-store sales


Challenge #1: The length of the attribution

window

“If they go down the app

download path, they may find

that their conversion rates

drop vs. just sending them to

the mobile web. They may want

to look at a longer-term horizon,

because that [app] user may

have a greater lifetime value.”

—Jason Hicks, vice president of

marketing and client services at

Kochava

“Best experience” “Acceptable experience”

Shorter

path to purchase

Longer

path to purchase

if app not already

installed


Challenge #2: The impact phone calls have on

conversions needs to factored in

93 billion calls will

be made to

businesses in the US

from smartphones in

2015

Up 23% from 2014


Challenge #3: How to quantify the impact of

mobile on in-store sales

Mobile devices influenced

or helped to convert about $970 billion in

US sales

Represents 28% of the

2014 total

“You would be shocked how

many marketers still don’t know

that you can trace an ad

on a mobile phone all the

way to an offline

transaction in a store.”

—Tim Jenkins, CEO of 4Info


“In some of the cases, brands only had 1%

of their budget going into mobile.

That may drive behavior, but it becomes

almost a rounding error in some of

these models compared to what television

might be influencing.”

—Rex Briggs, founder and CEO of Marketing

Evolution

Challenge #4: Limited data sets produced by

mobile campaigns


The Value of Mobile

for Four Brands


Mobile was second only to TV in creating the image that

MasterCard was a “good card to carry when traveling”

Per dollar spent, mobile worked almost twice as hard

(1.7x) compared with the campaign average in respect to building

this brand image

Source: Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), “Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness (SMoX) Study,” May 2015


Mobile exceeded broadcast and cable TV in creating the

intent to shop

Mobile drove 14% of the change in overall shopping intent

despite [receiving] only 7% of the spend



Mobile drove 25% of “top-of-mind” awareness

6% of sales with 5% of [the overall] budget

Compared with the campaign average, mobile generated nearly five

times (4.8x) the level of top-of-mind awareness



Key takeaway: All the brands could increase

their ROI by shifting more money into mobile

“Given what we've seen so far

[from the SMoX study], most

brand categories should be

spending more in

mobile.”

—Rex Briggs, founder and CEO of Marketing

Evolution


Conclusions

There is widespread agreement that attribution with mobile in the mix is a complex and resource-intensive undertaking

The pitfall to avoid is believing there is a perfect methodology,

tool or answer

Any move that will provide more clarity on mobile’s

contribution is worth taking, as evidenced by the results of the

brand studies


Adobe Analytics – Mobile App Analytics

• App-centric user interface for mobile teams lets you use:

• Pathing analysis to understand which screens and UI elements are more frequently used

• Cohort analysis to understand behavior of cohorts over time who download app during the same period

• Analyze user acquisition by:

• Campaign source

• Specific campaign

• Source and device model


Adobe Analytics Cross-Channel Attribution

• Stitch together marketing and

customer data from both offline and

online sources

• Ability to use rules-based models

(e.g. first/last, u-shaped) or algorithmic

attribution

• Analyze customer interactions (not

just campaigns) – across paid, earned

and owned sources

• Combine with all of Adobe Analytics –

• Anomaly detection

• Contribution analysis

• Segmentation

• Propensity scoring


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Cathy Boyle

Demystifying Mobile Attribution

Cross-Platform Attribution 2015: Device Identification, Big Data

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Cross-Device Targeting: Success Hinges on Device

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Mobile Audience Targeting: Have Industry Advances Raised

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Upcoming Webinar: Making Attribution Work in the

Age of Big Data, October 22, 2015