Attribution, attribution, attribution ==== Confusion for all ecommerce.

Attribution, attribution, attribution ==== Confusion for all ecommerce.

With the boom of ecommerce in India and the eco system evolving, one of the biggest challenges that an ecommerce company faces on the sales side is the digital channel sales attribution.  With media monies being spent in Corers and Corers (all VC monies), all of them grapple with the monster of attribution.

Speak to any ecommerce digital marketing manager in the eco system and “MULTi” channel is what they say is going to get customers and because it is multi channel, it becomes even more imperative when it comes to attribution.

Multi channel for an Ecommerce website looks some thing like this.

1.     Search

a.     Paid

b.     NON paid (SEO, which is also paidJ )

2.     Affiliate

a.     Networks

                                               i.     Network 1 (30 day cookie)

                                              ii.     Network 2 (1 day cookie)

                                            iii.     Network 3 (Session based registration)

                                            iv.     Network 4 (Crazy, my bosses way of cookie-ing)

                                              v.     Network 5 (blind networks).

3.     Paid Media

a.     Display Media

                                               i.     Website 1 / campaign 1

                                              ii.     Website 1 / campaign 2

                                            iii.     Website 2 / campaign 1

                                            iv.     Website 2/ Campaign 2

                                              v.     Website ‘N’/ Campaign ‘N’

And so on….

b.     Emails inventories

                                               i.     Internal (self promotion)

                                              ii.     External (Opt in inventories)

4.     Retargeted inventories

a.     Retargeting network 1

b.     Retargeting network 2

5.     Coupon Distribution

a.     External but digital

b.     Offline partners (Banks/ Credit card companies)

c.      Coupon sites (smart guys, all customers love them)

d.     Cash Back sites (nice to have, but too many have proliferated)

Coming back to sales attribution

Issues

Here are the possible attribution issues an ecommerce marketing manager will face.

Scenario 1 : Already registered user of a website let say “terimeritshirts.com”( good name, is available right now. J. )

Step one: gets a mail on his Rediff mail id. (Bought paid media by the site, thru an agency). [day 1]

Step two: Clicks on the mailer and buys the product.

Attribution Count: ONE – Rediff wins.  This was a walk in the park for the eCOM marketing manager.

That was easy. Now let us complicate this

Scenario 2 : Already registered user of a website let say “terimeritshirts.com”( as mentioned earlier, this domain is available )

Step one: gets a mail on his Rediff mail id. (Bought paid media by the site, thru an agency). [Day 1]

Step Two: user goes to site on that day, does not buy product.  [Day 1]

Step three: See’s a retargeted banner on NDTV.com thru retargeting network 1 [Day 10]

Step Four: Click’s on the banner goes to the site does not buy.  [Day 10]

Step Five: Opens his G-mail box, sees a banner in the right hand side (contextual banner). [Day 11]

Step Six : Clicks on the banner and still does not buy the product. [Day 11]

Step Seven: On the fifteenth day opens the website directly and buys the product. [Day 15]

Attribution Count: . Think think : who, where, what…

See what I mean, and this can go on and on… we can add more permutation and channels in the above example to complicate this further.

Answer this for Me. ??

Q. So which campaign according to you got this customer and who would you attribute this sale to and why?

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Spent some this on this one sale. Now imagine if the eCOM marketing manager has to do this for 1000 sales every day … or even more…

Trust me when I say this almost all eCOM companies suffer from the attribution syndrome for the following reasons.

1.     All the marketing teams (Paid Search, Media, SEO, Affiliate, brand) work in silos and not cohesively to understand the larger issue.

2.     Lack of attribution tech to handle this crazy way of tracking sales. Ask the nearest eCOM marketing manager and he still manages this data on a monthly basis on an excel sheet. (If he can get this from some where in his system).

3.     Business rules not present. (First referrer vs last referrer).

Solution:

1.     Run all your campaigns thru a single tracking solution. Use either a Known version of the tech or create our own, and be transparent.

2.     Set Business Rules.

3.     Give each digital marketing team lead the larger picture.

Now you will ask why is this so important,

Firstly : As an eCOM marketing manager, you should know what works for your brand, site, sales etc.

Secondly : all sales don’t happen at the same time the visitor comes to your site. eCOM users are smart and want to get the best deal from the website, so they will take time and scout around for the deal or just wait for a opportune time to buy the product.

And Lastly : Money is at the end of the day money , spending it wisely will ensure that the company and its promoters don’t not have to go for the next round of bank robbery. J .

 Let me know your thoughts.