Marc Dallimore, Edit’s Director of Data Science, explains the role attribution modelling can play in improving marketing campaign performance.
How do you know if your marketing is effective?
When you are running multiple marketing channels simultaneously, it pays to know the role that each one plays in the customer journey and how they work alongside each other. Using attribution modelling to ask the data is a highly effective way of understanding this.
We proved this while working with Tesco Bank. They had ambitions to move towards a more data-driven customer-first view to ensure they best served Tesco Shoppers and their money needs whilst uncovering ways to improve their marketing and maximise return on investment (ROI) across channels.
Demystifying marketing revenue
Tesco Bank came to us with four problems to solve in order to evaluate their marketing budget properly. They wanted to know:
- Which PPC keywords were overperforming, and what bid or SEO strategies could they use to increase associated investment?
- What impact was owned space, paid social, and display having on other marketing channels? In other words, were they driving assisted conversions?
- What impact were affiliate and aggregator marketing programmes having on other marketing channels? In other words, were they driving assisted conversions?
- Could we conduct data analysis on declines and refers through digital channels?
We realised we could solve all these questions by creating an end-to-end digital attribution model.
These methods would help Tesco Bank measure their marketing channel performance more accurately and enable them to make strategic, data-driven marketing decisions. With this information, they could decide which channels to invest marketing budget and how much money to put into them.
Implementing digital attribution
To make this happen, we needed to take several steps. During the initial set-up, we interrogated current cross-channel data, implemented attribution, added a reporting and visualisation tool, built the initial model, and reviewed any other offline tools. Then we audited digital analytics by looking at all the analytical tools used by agency partners.
Next came the implementation of on-site tools, reporting tools and optimisation framework – the latter was where we built an algorithm to generate actionable insights. We also dedicated time to data-driven attribution and data analysis, where we used the digital attribution model to identify opportunities.
But then Covid hit. Media spend dropped. We decided to run the model anyway and, once Tesco Bank increased media spend again, we made the algorithm re-learn – a strategy that enabled us to deliver everything the client needed despite challenging circumstances.
Improving ROI with attribution modelling
Now Tesco Bank receives more trusted and customer insights that cover conversion attribution, path to conversion analysis, assisted and role defining analysis, budget forecasting, and upweight per channel.
With a more accurate view of how channels are performing, Tesco Bank can now target its marketing budget better and know where to optimise channel. Putting customer research-to-buy insights at the centre means they can really understand their customers and how best to speak with them – tailoring and delivering targeted communications in the most effective and efficient way possible. This improved insight benefits all marketing activity, giving Tesco Bank a better ROI across their media spend, demonstrating the value of the work Edit carried out on the bottom line.
We’re still working closely with Tesco Bank on analysis, onboarding, and troubleshooting any issues. The next stage is to integrate the tools with the client’s customer data and adapt the model to focus on customer value.
Our work with Tesco Bank demonstrates how our Intelligent Data expertise can be leveraged to uncover ways to boost your ROI. It showcases our dynamic approach, where we can adapt technology and models to meet the tasks at hand. If your business needs this support to make sense of customer data and use it to maximise your marketing ROI, get in touch to find out what solutions we’d propose for you.
