How many different online marketing channels are you employing simultaneously? Let me guess… At least three; maybe five or more. If you’re reading my blog, then you, probably have an affiliate program. Besides it, you’re more than likely also engaged in paid search, SEO, social, possibly display and/or remarketing initiatives; maybe mobile, and video… And then add also email on top of these, and you get quite a borscht!
Last month Zoomerang‘s “2012 Marketing Trends Survey” revealed that in the course of 2012 business executives plan to increase their spend on email (60%), social media (55%), search (37%) and mobile (37%). They are also planning on actively integrating email with social media marketing (68%) as well as with mobile (44%) [see full report in PDF here]. I strongly hope that they’re also planning on investing into a robust platform to help them analyze all of these marketing efforts.
25% of digital marketers admit that their greatest challenge is in arriving at a comprehensive understanding of how all of these different online marketing channels effect their customers. I believe that the reason for this is that it is much easier to gather data than to interpret it — especially, if you’re not properly equipped to effectively do the latter…
One of my favorite multi-channel attribution solutions is being provided by a company called Impact Radius. And I was honored to have been asked to participate in their 2012 Marketing Solutions e-booklet, contributing to a page on “finding clarity in data” (see a snapshot of it below). The full booklet is now available for a free download, and you may request it here. It’s a quick (but important) read on a dozen of topics. I recommend it; and not only because I’ve participated in it. It’ll give you other good food for thought (and action) in 2012.
For numerous times over the past few years (including this recent interview to Smart Insights) I have been asked what I think about multi-click attribution — especially, in the affiliate marketing context. I’m not against it as long as (a) you know what you’re doing, and (b) your affiliate program stays competitive.