How We Transformed a $10M Ad Budget with Multi-touch Attribution Tracking

Executive Summary

We partnered with a home improvement company to optimize their multi-million dollar advertising budget across five channels through advanced multi-touch attribution (MTA) measurement. The challenge: overlapping attribution and limited visibility into the complex customer journey were preventing accurate ROI analysis and optimal budget allocation.

By implementing WickedReports multi-touch attribution platform, we transformed fragmented campaign data into actionable insights that drove significant cost efficiencies and revenue acceleration.

The Challenge: Why Traditional Tracking Falls Short in Multi-Channel Campaigns

A business in the home improvement industry came to us with a multi-million dollar media budget for the 2024 calendar year. The program aimed to drive incremental conversions and sales through targeted advertising. Despite running campaigns across 5 different platforms, they couldn’t accurately determine which channels were actually driving leads.

The core challenge: Each platform claimed credit for the same conversions, making it impossible to optimize budget allocation or measure true ROI.

While each channel had a variety of objectives, the overarching goal across all channel was to drive leads which would be converted into sales through an in-store purchase. We were tasked with driving leads at the lowest cost possible while determining the appropriate media mix across the various customer touchpoints.

The Problem: Attribution Overlap and Blind Spots Across Channels

The key challenge faced in this execution was multi-touch attribution overlap between marketing channels due to a lengthy path to purchase and many touchpoints along the way. This caused difficulties with analysis to determine what channels were truly responsible for incremental impact.

Specific Attribution Challenges:

• Platform reporting showed inflated conversion numbers due to view-through attribution overlap
• Google Analytics provided limited visibility into true new vs. returning user behavior
• Complex customer journey with multiple decision makers created measurement blind spots
• Inability to accurately measure incremental impact across the 5-channel media mix

We also identified an opportunity to better understand the consumer journey as it involved many steps of consideration and decision makers. The goal of this analysis was to develop a more thoughtful media plan that delivered timely content when and where users needed it.

Our Multi-Touch Attribution Solution: Building a Comprehensive Measurement Framework

In today’s fragmented media landscape, it’s more necessary than ever to multi-touch attribution tracking that persists across a user’s journey and across the many touchpoints that drive a potential customer closer to purchase. To this end, we implemented a 3rd party analytics & measurement tool called WickedReports to build this customer journey analysis & reporting.

Multi-Touch Attribution Setup:

• First-Party Pixel: A 1st party pixel was added to the client’s site to cookie visitors and track advanced metrics like new vs returning visits, time between visits, and comprehensive path analysis
• CRM Integration: WickedReports connected to the client’s CRM through an API to pass lead data captured by all marketing efforts across the organization
• Platform Connections: Individual channel connections were established through platform integrations allowing for the pass-through of campaign data including spend & clicks
• UTM Tracking: We appended unique UTM parameters to all ads to enable source and campaign tracking within the multi-touch attribution platform

Data was collected over a 6-month period and compared against ad platform data from the same time frame for this analysis. The key metrics assessed were:

• Total Leads (all paid media sources)
• % Lead Distribution by Channel
• Path to conversion length by Channel

Implementation: Connecting the Dots Across 5 Marketing Channels

To assess our key metrics, several solutions implemented that allowed for seamless analysis and reporting. Among these solutions, services provided included:

Multi-Touch Attribution Model Setup

We established connections between all ad platforms and the client’s CRM through API access, allowing for the automated flow of data. UTMs were used to track session level data as well as attribute a user’s unique browser cookie ID to traffic source.

We established the connection for more than 5 paid media channels across mediums including search, display, social, and video – creating a comprehensive multi-touch attribution model.

Dashboard & Data Visualization

A custom dashboard was developed to track performance at the channel and campaign level. Tables were customized to segment specific efforts like localized campaigns and testing efforts.

Real-time analysis was provided to our client through direct access to the dashboard allowing for quick access whenever the need arose.

Customer Journey Analysis & Touchpoint Attribution Modeling

Conversion paths were analyzed to determine the most common first and last touchpoints in the path to purchase. Time within the journey was also tracked to determine the length of the purchase path as well as avg time to convert for each media channel.

Path lengths were analyzed down to the campaign level for more granular analysis of top vs bottom of funnel tactics. Findings from this multi-touch attribution analysis helped fuel media mix allocations and general strategy related to channel priorities.

Results: 50% More Accurate Lead Attribution and Budget Optimization

Results showed that leads were over-reported in total from all paid channels with the largest offendors coming from Social Media due to view-through conversions.

While view-through conversions are important for optimization, including them in analysis of Cost per Lead can skew results, making social media platforms look like they are performing better than actual.

We also saw increased accuracy in new vs returning user volume when compared to Google Analytics. This is due to the fact that Google Analytics only counts returning users within the date range selected for reporting. So, if a user visits your site prior to the time range, they will be counted as a new user.

This insight was used to drive tactic-level optimizations, prioritizing campaign optimization methods that drove the most efficient reach and cost per lead from new-to-brand users.

With these improvements to ad targeting allowed us to perform more advanced customer journey and path analysis. Overall, we were able to drive key learnings in where each ad channel belonged in the purchase path.

Key findings included:

Low funnel tactics were identified as campaigns with 50% less time to convert than the average. Google was the primary channel driving bottom of funnel traffic due to the high intent of search traffic.

Ultimately, this led to adjustments in channel mix, allocating more budget to Google Search. Its shorter path length meant quicker revenue recognition and drove cost per lead savings.

Key Takeaways: Why Multi-touch Attribution is Essential for Multi-Channel Success

Today’s fragmented media landscape calls for more sophisticated tracking methods than ever before. The deprecation of third-party cookies in several browsers as well as the increasing complexity in user browsing habits limits marketer’s view of what leads to a purchase.

Implementing a multi-touch attribution reporting tool offers visibility beyond what single ad platforms provide – enabling better optimization and strategic decision-making.

In this client example, we found significant areas of improvement through analysis of:

• Complex user journey: Tracking which channels were driving first-touch and last-touch conversions helped prioritize spend to drive the most efficient results
• Media mix allocation: Measuring unduplicated conversions gave us more accurate costs per lead and better budget allocation in each channel.
• Tactic-level optimization: Measuring performance of new vs returning traffic across different campaign optimization methods.

Strategic Recommendations

For businesses managing complex, multi-channel advertising strategies, multi-touch attribution is no longer optional – it’s essential. Our experience demonstrates that:

1. Platform reporting alone is insufficient for accurate ROI measurement in multi-channel environments
2. Multi-touch attribution platforms like WickedReports provide 50%+ more accuracy than relying on individual platform data
3. Customer journey analysis through proper attribution reveals optimization opportunities that can significantly impact budget efficiency
4. First-party data integration is crucial for comprehensive multi-touch attribution in a cookieless future (see Cookieless Advertising for more info on available tools)

As marketing attribution continues to evolve with privacy regulations and platform changes, investing in robust multi-touch attribution measurement becomes increasingly critical for maintaining competitive advantage and driving sustainable growth.

The results speak for themselves: when you can accurately measure what’s working across your entire marketing funnel, you can optimize with confidence and drive meaningful business impact.