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Everything You Need To Know

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Everything You Need To Know

Now more than ever, marketing and sales leaders are taking a critical look at where to allocate their resources and how to staff their teams.

Attribution modeling is one of the best tools for providing clear guidance on what’s working, and what isn’t.

What Is Marketing Attribution?

Marketing attribution is the approach to understanding how various marketing and sales touchpoints influence the prospects’ move from visitor, to lead, to customer.

By implementing attribution in your organization, you’ll have a better idea of:

  • Which channels are most influential during different phases of the sales cycle.
  • Which content formats are more or less impactful in your marketing or sales enablement efforts.
  • Which campaigns drove the most revenue and return on investment (ROI).
  • The most common sequence of online or offline events that prospects interact with before becoming a customer.

Why Is Attribution Important In Marketing?

Analyzing attribution data provides you with an understanding of which marketing, sales, and customer success efforts are contributing most effectively and efficiently toward revenue generation.

Attribution modeling helps you identify opportunities for growth and improvement, while also informing budget allocation decisions.

With accurate attribution models, marketers are able to make more informed decisions about their campaigns, which has allowed them to increase ROI and reduce wasted budgets on ineffective strategies.

What Are The Challenges Of Marketing Attribution?

Developing a perfect attribution model that guides all of your decisions is a pipedream for most marketers.

Here are five challenges that result in inconclusive data models or total project abandonment:

Cross-Channel Management

This is a common challenge for enterprise marketers who have web assets across multiple websites, channels, and teams.

Without proper analytics tagging and system settings configuration, your web activities may not be tracked accurately as a visitor goes from one campaign micro-site to the main domain.

Or, the prospect may not be tracked as they go from your website to get directions to then go to your physical storefront to transact.

Making Decisions Based On Small Sample Sizes

For smaller trafficked websites, marketers using attribution data may not have statistically significant data sets to draw accurate correlations for future campaigns.

This results in faulty assumptions and the inability to repeat prior success.

Lack Of Tracking Compliance

If your attribution models rely on offline activities, then you may require manual imports of data or proper logging of sales activities.

From my experience in overseeing hundreds of CRM implementations, there is always some level of non-compliance in logging activities (like calls, meetings, or emails). This leads to skewed attribution models.

Mo‘ models, mo’ problems: Each analytics platform has a set of five or more attribution models you can use to optimize your campaigns around.

Without a clear understanding of the pros and cons of each model, the person building the attribution reporting may not be structuring or configuring them to align with your organizational goals.

Data Privacy

Since GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy laws were enacted, analytics data continues to get murkier each year.

For organizations that rely on web visitors to opt-in to tracking, attribution modeling suffers due to the inability to pull in tracking for every touchpoint.

How Do You Measure Marketing Attribution?

Measuring attribution is all about giving credit where it is due. There are dozens of attribution tools out there to assign credit to the digital or offline touchpoint.

Attribution measurement starts with choosing the data model that aligns with your business goals.

Certain attribution models favor interactions earlier on in the customer journey whereas others give the most credit towards interactions closer to a transaction.

Here is a scenario of how to measure marketing attribution in a first-touch attribution model (we’ll get to the different models next):

A prospect comes to the website through a paid search ad and reads the blog.

Two days later, she comes back to the site and views a couple of product pages.

Three days later, she comes back through an organic listing from Google and then converts on the site by signing up for a discount coupon.

With a first-touch attribution model, the paid search ad will get 100% of the credit for that conversion.

As you can see, choosing the “right” model can be a contentious issue, as each model gives a percentage of credit to a specific interaction or placement along the path toward becoming a customer.

If your business relies on paid search, SEO, offline, and other channels, then likely one of the individuals working on one of those channels is going to look like the superhero, whereas the other marketers will look like they aren’t pulling their weight.

Ideally, when you are choosing an attribution tool, you’ll be able to build reports that allow you to compare various attribution models, so you have a better understanding of which channels and interactions are most influential during certain time periods leading up to conversion or purchase.

What Are Different Marketing Attribution Models?

Marketers can use various marketing attribution models to examine the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Each attribution tool has will have a handful of models you can optimize campaigns and build reports around. Here is a description of each model:

First-Click Attribution

This model gives credit to the first channel that the customer interacted with.

This model is popular to use when optimizing for brand awareness and top-of-funnel conversions/engagement.

Last-Click Attribution

This model gives all of the credit to the last channel that the customer interacts with.

This model is useful when looking to understand which channels/interactions were most influential immediately before converting/purchasing.

Last-click attribution is the default attribution model for Google Analytics.

Multi-Touch/Channel Attribution

This model gives credit to all of the channels or touchpoints that the customer interacted with throughout their journey.

This model is used when you are looking to give weight evenly or to specific interactions.

There are variations of the multi-touch model including time-decay, linear, U-shaped, W-shaped, and J-shaped.

Customized

This model allows you to manually set the weight for individual channels or placements within the customer journey.

This model is best for organizations that have experience in using attribution modeling, and have clear goals for what touchpoints are most impactful in the buyers’ journey.

Marketing Attribution Tools

There are several different tools available to help marketers measure and analyze marketing attribution. Some attribution tools are features within marketing automation platforms or CRM systems like Active Campaign or HubSpot.

Others are stand-alone attribution tools that rely on API or integrations to pull in and analyze data, like Triple Whale or Dreamdata.

As you are evaluating tools, consider how much offline or sales data needs to be included within your attribution models.

For systems like HubSpot, you can include sales activities (like phone calls and 1:1 sales emails) and offline list import data (from tradeshows).

Other tools, like Google Analytics, are not natively built to pull in that kind of data and would require advanced development work to include these activities as part of your model.

(Full disclosure: I work with HubSpot’s highest-rated partner agency, SmartBug Media.)

Additionally, if you need to be able to see the very specific touchpoints (like a specific email sent or an ad clicked), then you need a full-funnel attribution system that shows this level of granularity.

Attribution modeling is a powerful tool that marketers can use to measure the success of their campaigns, optimize online/offline channels, and improve customer interactions.

It is important, though, to understand attribution’s limitations, the pros and cons of each model, and the challenges with extracting conclusive data before investing large budgets towards attribution technology.

More resources: 


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How Do You Clean Up Content Without Effecting Rankings?

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How Do You Clean Up Content Without Effecting Rankings?

Today’s Ask An SEO question comes from Neethu, who asks:

My website is almost 20 years old. There are lots of content. Many of them are not performing well. How do you effectively clean up those content without effecting rankings?

Contrary to what some SEO pros tell you, more content is not always better.

Deciding what content to keep, which content to modify, and which content to throw away is an important consideration, as content is the backbone of any website and is essential for driving traffic, engagement, and conversions.

However, not all content is created equal, and outdated, irrelevant, or underperforming content can hinder a website’s success.

Run A Content Audit

To effectively clean up your website’s content, the first step is to conduct a content audit.

This involves analyzing your site’s content and assessing its performance, relevance, and quality.

You can use various metrics such as traffic, bounce rate, and engagement to identify which pages are performing well and which ones are not.

Once you have identified the pages that are not performing well, it’s important to prioritize them based on their importance to your website.

Pages that are not driving traffic or conversions may need to be prioritized over pages that are not performing well but are still important for your site’s overall goals.

Distinguish Evergreen Vs. Time-Sensitive Content

Additionally, it’s important to consider whether a page is evergreen or time-sensitive.

You can update or repurpose evergreen content over time, while you may need to remove time-sensitive content.

After prioritizing your content, you can decide what action to take with each page.

For pages that are still relevant but not performing well, you may be able to update them with fresh information to improve their performance.

For pages that are outdated or no longer relevant, it may be best to remove them altogether.

When removing content, implement 301 redirects to relevant pages to ensure that any backlinks pointing to the old page are not lost.

Monitor Your Stuff

It’s important to monitor your search engine rankings after cleaning up your content to ensure your changes do not negatively impact your SEO.

But don’t just look at rankings.

Content optimization projects can affect traffic, conversions, navigation, and other items that impact your overall search engine optimization efforts.

Watch Google Analytics closely. If there are traffic declines, you may need to re-evaluate a few changes.

It’s important not to have a knee-jerk reaction, however.

Before you throw out your optimization efforts, be sure that the changes you made are actually what is causing a drop – and make sure those changes are stable within the search engines index.

Remember that it may take some time for your rankings to stabilize after a content cleanup, so it’s important to be patient and monitor your website’s performance over time.

To further optimize your content cleanup, consider using Google Search Console to identify pages with high impressions but low click-through rates.

These pages may benefit from content updates or optimization to improve their performance.

Additionally, consolidating pages that cover similar topics into one comprehensive page can improve user experience and help avoid keyword cannibalization.

In Summary

Cleaning up your website’s content is crucial for maintaining a high-quality site.

By conducting a content audit, prioritizing your content, and deciding whether to keep, update, or remove the content, you can effectively clean up your site without negatively impacting your rankings.

Remember to monitor your rankings and be patient as your site adjust.

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Featured Image: Song_about_summer/Shutterstock



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Optimize Your SEO Strategy For Maximum ROI With These 5 Tips

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Optimize Your SEO Strategy For Maximum ROI With These 5 Tips

Wondering what improvements can you make to boost organic search results and increase ROI?

If you want to be successful in SEO, even after large Google algorithm updates, be sure to:

  1. Keep the SEO fundamentals at the forefront of your strategy.
  2. Prioritize your SEO efforts for the most rewarding outcomes.
  3. Focus on uncovering and prioritizing commercial opportunities if you’re in ecommerce.
  4. Dive into seasonal trends and how to plan for them.
  5. Get tip 5 and all of the step-by-step how-tos by joining our upcoming webinar.

We’ll share five actionable ways you can discover the most impactful opportunities for your business and achieve maximum ROI.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Identify seasonal trends and plan for them.
  • Report on and optimize your online share of voice.
  • Maximize SERP feature opportunities, most notably Popular Products.

Join Jon Earnshaw, Chief Product Evangelist and Co-Founder of Pi Datametrics, and Sophie Moule, Head of Product and Marketing at Pi Datametrics, as they walk you through ways to drastically improve the ROI of your SEO strategy.

In this live session, we’ll uncover innovative ways you can step up your search strategy and outperform your competitors.

Ready to start maximizing your results and growing your business?

Sign up now and get the actionable insights you need for SEO success.

Can’t attend the live webinar? We’ve got you covered. Register anyway and you’ll get access to a recording, after the event.



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TikTok’s US Future Uncertain: CEO Faces Congress

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TikTok's US Future Uncertain: CEO Faces Congress

During a five-hour congressional hearing, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced intense scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers about the social media platform’s connections to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Legislators from both sides demanded clear answers on whether TikTok spies on Americans for China.

The U.S. government has been pushing for the divestiture of TikTok and has even threatened to ban the app in the United States.

Chew found himself in a difficult position, attempting to portray TikTok as an independent company not influenced by China.

However, lawmakers remained skeptical, citing China’s opposition to the sale of TikTok as evidence of the country’s influence over the company.

The hearing was marked by a rare display of bipartisan unity, with the tone harsher than in previous congressional hearings featuring American social media executives.

The Future of TikTok In The US

With the U.S. and China at odds over TikTok’s sale, the app faces two possible outcomes in the United States.

Either TikTok gets banned, or it revisits negotiations for a technical fix to data security concerns.

Lindsay Gorman, head of technology and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund, said, “The future of TikTok in the U.S. is definitely dimmer and more uncertain today than it was yesterday.”

TikTok has proposed measures to protect U.S. user data, but no security agreement has been reached.

Addressing Concerns About Societal Impact

Lawmakers at the hearing raised concerns about TikTok’s impact on young Americans, accusing the platform of invading privacy and harming mental health.

According to the Pew Research Center, the app is used by 67% of U.S. teenagers.

Critics argue that the app is too addictive and its algorithm can expose teens to dangerous or lethal situations.

Chew pointed to new screen time limits and content guidelines to address these concerns, but lawmakers remained unconvinced.

In Summary

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on TikTok addressed concerns common to all social media platforms, like spreading harmful content and collecting massive user data.

Most committee members were critical of TikTok, but many avoided the typical grandstanding seen in high-profile hearings.

The hearing aimed to make a case for regulating social media and protecting children rather than focusing on the national security threat posed by the app’s connection to China.

If anything emerges from this hearing, it could be related to those regulations.

The hearing also allowed Congress to convince Americans that TikTok is a national security threat that warrants a ban.

This concern arises from the potential for the Chinese government to access the data of TikTok’s 150 million U.S. users or manipulate its recommendation algorithms to spread propaganda or disinformation.

However, limited public evidence supports these claims, making banning the app seem extreme and potentially unnecessary.

As events progress, staying informed is crucial as the outcome could impact the digital marketing landscape.


Featured Image: Rokas Tenys/Shutterstock

Full replay of congressional hearing available on YouTube.



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