Glossary
Mobile App Terminology

Multi-channel attribution


What is multi-channel attribution?

Multi-channel attribution refers to the process of assigning credit to marketing channels that influence a conversion or purchase. In the digital marketing world, a conversion often involves a user taking a desired action, such as downloading an app, making an in-app purchase, signing up for a service, or making an online purchase. With multi-channel attribution, the goal is to analyze how many separate marketing channels contributed to that conversion across devices and platforms.

Multi-channel attribution emerged with the rise of digital marketing channels like paid search, social media ads, email marketing, and more. Marketers realized they needed to track conversions across channels to determine each channel’s true marketing impact and return on investment (ROI). This moved beyond the traditional last-click attribution model, where 100% of the credit went to the final click or ad before conversion.

With multi-channel attribution, marketing analytics platforms track user journeys across channels and devices to assign proportional credit to each touchpoint leading up to a conversion. Relevant data points across channels are matched to user IDs to create a cross-channel view of the customer journey and helps in cross-channel marketing to customers. This conversion path analysis allows for data-driven optimization of marketing budgets and strategies.

Need attribution? We can help

Singular has the tools you need …

What is the general usage of multi-channel attribution?

Multi-channel attribution has become a crucial tool for modern digital marketers to measure performance and optimize campaigns across platforms. There are several key ways that marketers utilize multi-channel attribution:

  • Understand the true impact of each channel: By analyzing the entire conversion path, marketers can see the influence each channel has at different stages of the user journey. This avoids incorrectly assigning 100% credit to the last click or ad.
  • Optimize marketing spend across channels: Seeing the actual conversion value of each channel allows marketers to shift budgets to the highest-performing platforms and campaigns.
  • Enhance targeting and personalization: Analyzing attribution data can reveal insights to enhance audience targeting and campaign personalization for each channel.
  • Identify trends and opportunities: Multi-channel analysis may reveal emerging platforms and campaigns to double down on or underperforming efforts to pause.
  • Calculate customer lifetime value: Attribution provides a more accurate measure of the revenue driven by users acquired on each platform.
  • Inform creative strategies: Seeing which creatives perform best by channel can inform future creative development and optimization.
  • Improve user experiences: Analyzing the path to conversion highlights opportunities to remove friction and optimize user funnels.

These insights empower marketers to optimize ad creatives, audiences, budgets, and strategies at each stage of the user journey. As a result, marketers can drive growth and maximize return on ad spend.

How Singular uses multi-channel attribution

As a leading marketing analytics platform, Singular provides mobile marketers with powerful multi-channel attribution capabilities to measure and optimize performance. Key features of Singular’s attribution offering include:

  • Cross-channel measurement: When marketers use Singular’s deep linking capability, Singular can help them integrate data from a wide variety of core marketing channels, including paid social, paid search, affiliate networks, email, and out of home. Doing so can provide a more complete view of the user journey.
  • Cross-device capabilities: Singular stitches together user journeys across mobile, desktop, tablets, consoles, and connected TVs to avoid device-based attribution gaps.
  • Media mix modeling: Singular’s media mix modeling product helps  applies both algorithmic machine learning and customizable rules-based modeling to determine channel influence.
  • ROAS analysis: By combining attribution with cost data, Singular calculates the accurate return on ad spend by channel and campaign to guide budget optimization.
  • Real-time analytics: Singular provides real-time access to attribution analytics and dashboards to enable swift optimization.
  • Fraud prevention: Singular’s fraud prevention tools ensure attribution is based on actual, high-quality clicks and conversions.
  • Flexible integration: Singular offers open and flexible integration with all major marketing platforms via API and SDKs.

With these capabilities, Singular empowers mobile marketers to analyze the entire user journey across devices and channels. Doing so helps uncover clear optimization opportunities to boost marketing performance, lower costs, and maximize ROAS. The insights derived from Singular’s multi-channel attribution lead to better-informed strategies, precise targeting, and impact-driven budget allocation.

By eliminating attribution blindspots and revealing an accurate cross-channel view of marketing influence, Singular enables brands to optimize the path to conversion at each touchpoint. As a result, mobile marketers can drive sustainable and profitable growth through precise, data-driven decision-making.

Singular also offers advanced capabilities to further enhance multi-channel attribution, some of which are:

Incrementality measurement– Singular enables marketers to measure the incremental impact of their marketing efforts by comparing the performance of users exposed to ads versus a control group of users who were not exposed to the same ads. This helps determine the true value and effectiveness of each channel in driving conversions.

Customizable attribution models- Singular allows marketers to create custom attribution models tailored to their specific business needs. This flexibility enables them to assign credit to different touchpoints based on their unique customer journey and marketing objectives.

Granular campaign insights- With Singular’s granular campaign-level insights, marketers can dive deep into the performance of individual campaigns and ad sets across channels. This level of detail helps identify high-performing campaigns and optimize underperforming ones.

Integration with marketing automation tools- Singular seamlessly integrates with popular marketing automation tools, allowing marketers to automate their multi-channel attribution workflows and streamline their reporting and analysis processes.

Data visualization and reporting- Singular provides intuitive data visualization and reporting capabilities, making it easy for marketers to understand and communicate the impact of their marketing efforts across channels. Customizable dashboards and reports enable marketers to track key performance indicators and share insights with stakeholders.

Predictive analytics- Leveraging machine learning and predictive analytics, Singular helps marketers forecast the future performance of their marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions. This enables them to allocate resources effectively and optimize their strategies for maximum impact.

By leveraging these advanced features, Singular empowers marketers to comprehensively understand their multi-channel marketing efforts and make informed decisions to drive growth and maximize ROI. The platform’s robust capabilities, combined with its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with other marketing tools, make it a valuable asset for any marketer looking to optimize their multi-channel attribution strategies.

In conclusion, multi-channel attribution is a critical component of modern marketing strategies. By accurately assigning credit to each marketing channel, marketers can optimize their campaigns, allocate budgets effectively, and drive meaningful business results. Singular’s powerful multi-channel attribution capabilities give marketers the insights and tools to measure, analyze, and optimize their marketing efforts across channels and devices.

Related Terms

Related Articles

Related Terms

Stay up to date on the latest happenings in digital marketing