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• Web Analytics : The Quick Start Guide

  25 janvier 2024, par Erin

  You’ve spent ages carefully designing your website, crafting copy to encourage as many users as possible to purchase your product. 

  But they aren’t. And you don’t know why. 

  The good news is you don’t have to remain in the dark. Collecting and analysing web analytics lets you understand how your users behave on your site and why they aren’t converting. 

  But before you can do that, you need to know what those metrics and KPIs mean. That’s why this article is taking things back to basics. Below, we’ll show you which metrics to track, what they mean and how to choose the best web analytics platform. 

  What is web analytics ?

  Web analytics is the process of collecting, analysing and reporting website data to understand how users behave on your website. Web analytics platforms like Matomo collect this data by adding a code line to every site page. 

  Why is it important to track web analytics ?

  There are plenty of reasons you should start tracking web analytics, including the following :

  

  Analyse user behaviour

  Being able to analyse user behaviour is the most important reason to track website analytics. After all, you can’t improve your website’s conversion rate if you don’t know what users do on your site.

  A web analytics platform can show you how users move around your site, the links they click on and the forms they fill in. 

  Improve site experience

  Web analytics is a fantastic way to identify issues and find areas where your site could improve. You could look at your site’s exit pages, for example, and see why so many users leave your site when viewing one of these pages and what you can do to fix it.

  It can also teach you about your user’s preferences so you can improve the user experience in the future. Maybe they always click a certain type of button or prefer one page’s design over another. Whatever the case, you can use the data to make your site more user-friendly and increase conversions.

  Boost marketing efforts

  Web analytics is one of the best ways to understand your marketing efforts and learn how to improve them.

  A good platform can collect valuable data about your marketing campaigns, including :

  • Where users came from
  • What actions these users take on your site
  • Which traffic sources create the most conversions

  This information can help you decide which marketing campaigns send the best users to your site and generate the highest ROI. 

  Make informed decisions

  Ultimately, web analytics simplifies decision-making for your website and marketing efforts by relying on concrete data instead of guesswork.

  Rather than wonder why users aren’t adding products to their shopping cart or signing up for your newsletter, you can analyse how they behave and use that information to hypothesise how you can improve conversions. Web analytics will even give you the data to confirm whether you were right or wrong. 

  What are the key metrics you should track ?

  Getting your head around web analytics means knowing the most important metrics to track. Below are seven key metrics and how to track them using Matomo. 

  Traffic

  Traffic is the number of people visiting your website over a period of time. It is the lifeblood of your website since the more visits your site receives, the more revenue it stands to generate.

  However, simply having a high volume of visitors does not guarantee substantial revenue. To maximise your success, focus on attracting your ideal customers and generating quality traffic from those who are most likely to engage with your offerings.

  Ideally, you should be seeing an upward trend in traffic over time though. The longer your website has been published and the more quality and targeted content you create, the more traffic you should receive. 

  Matomo offers multiple ways to check your website’s traffic :

  • Visits log report
  • Real-time visitor map
  • Visits in real-time report

  The visits log report in Matomo is perfect if you want a granular view of your visitors.

  

  It shows you each user session and get a detailed picture of each user, including :

  • Their geographic location
  • The number of actions they took
  • How they found your site
  • The length of time they stayed
  • Their device type
  • What browser they are using
  • The keyword they used to find your site

  Traffic sources

  Traffic sources show how users access your website. They can enter via a range of traffic sources, including search engines, email and direct visits, for instance.

  Matomo has five default traffic source types :

  • Search engine – visitors from search platforms (like Google, Bing, etc.)
  • Direct traffic – individuals who directly type your website’s URL into their browser or have it bookmarked, bypassing search engines or external links
  • Websites – visits from other external sites
  • Campaigns – traffic resulting from specific marketing initiatives (like a newsletter or ad campaign, for instance)
  • Social networks  – visitors who access your website through various social media platforms (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. etc.)

  But each of these can be broken into more granular sources. Take organic traffic from search engines, for example :

  

  Matomo tracks visits from each search engine, showing you how many visits you had in total, how many actions those visitors took, and the average amount of time those visitors spent on your site. 

  You can even integrate Google, Bing and Yahoo search consoles to monitor keyword performance and enhance your search engine optimisation efforts.

  Pageviews

  Whenever a browser loads a page, your web analytics tool records a pageview. This term, pageview, represents the count of unique times a page on your website is loaded.

  You can track pageviews in Matomo by opening the Pages tab in the Behaviour section of the main navigation. 

  

  You can quickly see your site’s most visited pages in this report in Matomo. 

  Be careful of deriving too much meaning from pageviews. Just because a page has lots of views, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s quality or valuable. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the page might be confusing, so users have to keep revisiting it to understand the content. Second, it could be the default page most visitors land on when they enter your site, like the homepage. 

  While pageviews offer insights, it’s important to dig deeper into user behaviour and other metrics to truly gauge a page’s importance and impact.

  Average time on page

  Time on page is the amount of time users spend on the page on average. You can see average time on page in Matomo’s page analytics report.

  A low time on page score isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Users will naturally spend less time on gateway pages and checkout pages. A short time spent on checkout pages, especially if users are successfully completing their transactions, indicates that the checkout process is easy and seamless.

  Conversely, a longer time on blog posts is a positive indicator. It suggests that readers are genuinely engaged with the content.

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  Returning visitors

  Returning visitors measures the number of people who visit your site more than once. It can be expressed as a number or a percentage. 

  While some analytics tools only show returning visitors as a percentage, Matomo lets you learn more about each of them in the Visitor profile report. 

  

  This report offers a full summary of a user’s previous actions, including :

  • How many times they’ve visited your site
  • The pages they viewed on each visit
  • Where they visited from
  • The devices they used
  • How quickly pages loaded

  When people keep coming back to a website, it’s usually a positive sign and means they like the service, content or products. But, it depends on the type of website. If it’s the kind of site where people make one-off purchases, the focus might not be on getting visitors to return. For a site like this, a high number of returning visitors could indicate that the website is confusing or difficult to use. 

  It’s all about the context – different websites have different goals, and it’s important to keep this in mind when analysing your site.

  Conversions

  A conversion is when a user takes a desired action on your website. This could be :

  • Making a purchase
  • Subscribing to your newsletter
  • Signing up for a webinar

  You can track virtually any action as a conversion in Matomo by setting goals and analysing the goals report.

  

  As you can see in the screenshot above, Matomo shows your conversions plotted over time. You can also see your conversion rate to get a complete picture and assign a value to each conversion to calculate how much revenue each conversion generates. 

  Bounce rate

  A visitor bounces when they leave your website without taking an action or visiting another page. 

  Typically, you want bounce rate to be low because it means people are engaged with your site and more likely to convert. However, in some cases, a high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad. It might mean that visitors found what they needed on the first page and didn’t feel the need to look further. 

  The impact of bounce rate depends on your website’s purpose and goals.

  You can view your website’s bounce rate using Matomo’s page analytics report — the same report that shows pageviews.

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  Web analytics best practices

  You should follow several best practices to get the most from website analytics data. 

  Choose metrics that align with your goals

  Only some metrics your analytics platform tracks will be relevant to your business. So don’t waste time analysing all of them.

  Instead, focus on the ones that matter most to your business. A marketer for an e-commerce store, for example, might focus on conversion-related metrics like conversion rate and total number of transactions. They might also want to look at campaign-related metrics, like traffic sources and bounce rates, so they can optimise paid ad campaigns accordingly. 

  A marketer looking to improve their site’s SEO, on the other hand, will want to track SEO web analytics like bounce rate and broken links.

  Add context to your data

  Don’t take your data at face value. There could be dozens of factors that impact how visitors access and use your site — many of which are outside your control. 

  For example, you may think an update to your site has sent your conversions crashing when, in reality, a Google algorithm update has negatively impacted your search traffic.

  Adding annotations within Matomo can provide invaluable context to your data. These annotations can be used to highlight specific events, changes or external factors that might influence your website metrics.

  

  By documenting significant occurrences, such as website updates, marketing campaigns or algorithm changes, you create a timeline that helps explain fluctuations in your data.

  Go further with advanced web analytics features

  It’s clear that a web analytics platform is a necessary tool to understand your website’s performance.

  However, if you want greater confidence in decision-making, quicker insights and better use of budget and resources, you need an advanced solution with behavioural analytics features like heatmaps, A/B testing and session recordings. 

  Most web analytics solutions don’t offer these advanced features, but Matomo does, so we’ll be showcasing Matomo’s behavioural analytics features.

  Now, if you don’t have a Matomo account, you can try it free for 21-days to see if it’s the right tool for you.

  

  A heatmap, like the example above, makes it easy to discover where your users pay attention, which part of your site they have problems with, and how they convert. It adds a layer of qualitative data to the facts offered by your web analytics tool.

  Similarly, session recordings will offer you real-time playbacks of user interactions, helping you understand their navigation patterns, identify pain points and gain insights into the user experience.

  Then you can run experiments bu using A/B testing to compare different versions of your website or specific elements, allowing you to make informed decisions based on actual user preferences and behaviour. For instance, you can compare different headlines, images, page layouts or call-to-action buttons to see which resonates better with your audience. 

  Together, these advanced features will give you the confidence to optimise your website, improve user satisfaction and make data-driven decisions that positively impact your business.

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  How to choose a web analytics tool

  A web analytics tool is the best way to track the above metrics. Choose the best one for your company by following the steps below. 

  Look for the right features

  Most popular web analytics platforms, like Google Analytics, will offer the same core features like tracking website traffic, monitoring conversions and generating reports. 

  But it’s the added features that set great tools apart. Do you need specific tools to measure the performance of your e-commerce store, for example ? What about paid ad performance, A/B testing or form analytics ?

  By understanding exactly what you need from an analytics platform, you can make an informed choice. 

  Think about data accuracy

  Data accuracy is one of the biggest issues with analytics tools. Many users block cookies or opt out of tracking, making it difficult to get a clear picture of user behaviour — and meaning that you have to think about how your user data will be collected with your chosen platform.

  Google Analytics, for instance, uses data sampling to make assumptions about traffic levels rather than relying on accurate data. This can lead to inaccurate reports and false conclusions. 

  It’s why Matomo doesn’t use data sampling and provides 100% accurate data. 

  Understand how you’ll deal with data privacy

  Data privacy is another big concern for analytics users. Several major analytics platforms aren’t compatible with regional data privacy laws like GDPR, which can impact your ability to collect data in these regions. 

  It’s why many companies trust privacy-focused analytics tools that abide by regulations without impacting your ability to collect data. Matomo is a market leader in this respect and is one of the few web analytics tools that the Centre for Data Privacy Protection in France has said is exempt from tracking consent requirements.

  Many government agencies across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, including organisations like the United Nations and European Commission, rely on Matomo for web analytics.

  Conclusion

  Web analytics is a powerful tool that helps you better understand your users, improve your site’s performance and boost your marketing efforts. 

  If you want a platform that offers advanced features, 100% accurate data and protects your users’ privacy, then look no further than Matomo. 

  Try Matomo free for 21 days, no credit card required. 

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• How to Implement Cross-Channel Analytics : A Guide for Marketers

  17 avril 2024, par Erin

  Every modern marketer knows they have to connect with consumers across several channels. But do you know how well Instagram works alongside organic traffic or your email list ? Are you even tracking the impacts of these channels in one place ?

  You need a cross-channel analytics solution if you answered no to either of these questions. 

  In this article, we’ll explain cross-channel analytics, why your company probably needs it and how to set up a cross-channel analytics solution as quickly and easily as possible.

  What is cross-channel analytics ? 

  Cross-channel analytics is a form of marketing analytics that collects and analyses data from every channel and campaign you use.

  The result is a comprehensive view of your customer’s journey and each channel’s role in converting customers. 

  Cross-channel analytics lets you track every channel you use to convert customers, including :

  • Your website
  • Social media profiles
  • Email
  • Paid search
  • E-commerce
  • Retargeting campaigns

  Cross-channel analytics solves one of the most significant issues of cross-channel or multi-channel marketing efforts : measurement. 

  Research shows that only 16% of marketing tech stacks allow for accurate measurement of multi-channel initiatives across channels. 

  That’s a problem, given the staggering number of touchpoints in a typical buyer’s conversion path. However, it can be fixed using a cross-channel analytics approach that lets you measure the performance of every channel and assign a dollar value to its role in every conversion. 

  The difference between cross-channel analytics and multi-channel analytics

  Cross-channel analytics and multi-channel analytics sound very similar, but there’s one key difference you need to know. Multi-channel analytics measures the performance of several channels, but not necessarily all of them, nor the extent to which they work together to drive conversions. Conversely, cross-channel analytics measures the performance of all your marketing channels and how they work together. 

  What are the benefits of cross-channel analytics 

  Cross-channel analytics offers a lot of marketing and business benefits. Here are the ones marketing managers love most.

  Get a complete view of the customer journey

  Implementing a cross-channel analytics solution is the only way to get a complete view of your customer journey. 

  Cross-channel marketing analytics lets you see your customer journey in high definition, allowing you to build comprehensive customer profiles using data from multiple sources across every touchpoint. 

  

  The result ? You get to understand how every customer behaves at every point of the customer journey, why they convert or leave your funnel, and which channels play the biggest role. 

  In short, you get to see why customers convert so you can learn how to convert more of them.

  Personalise the customer experience

  According to a McKinsey study, customers demand personalisation, and brands that excel at it generate 40% more revenue. Deliver the personalisation they desire and reap the benefits with cross-channel analytics. 

  When you understand the customer journey in detail, it becomes much easier to personalise your website and marketing efforts to their preferences and behaviours.

  Identify your most effective marketing channels

  Cross-channel marketing helps you understand your marketing efforts to see how every channel impacts conversions. 

  Take a look at the screenshot from Matomo below. Cross-channel analytics lets you get incredibly granular — we can see the number of conversions of organic search drives and the performance of individual search engines. 

  

  This makes it easy to identify your most effective marketing channels and allocate your resources appropriately. It also allows you to ask (and answer) which channels are the most effective.

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  Attribute conversions accurately 

  An attribution model decides how you assign credit for each customer conversion to different touchpoints on the customer journey. Without a cross-channel analytics solution, you’re stuck using a standard attribution model like first or last click. 

  These models will show you how customers first found your brand or which channel finally convinced them to convert, but it doesn’t help you understand the role all your channels played in the conversion. 

  Cross-channel analytics solves this attribution problem. Rather than attributing a conversion to the touchpoint that directly led to the sale, cross-channel data gives you the real picture and allows you to use multi-touch attribution to understand which touchpoints generate the most revenue.

  How to set up cross-channel analytics

  Now that you know what cross-channel analytics is and why you should use it, here’s how to set up your solution. 

  1. Determine your objectives

  Defining your marketing goals will help you build a more relevant and actionable cross-channel analytics solution. 

  If you want to improve marketing attribution, for example, you can choose a platform with that feature built-in. If you care about personalisation, you could choose a platform with A/B testing capabilities to measure the impact of your personalisation efforts. 

  1. Set relevant KPIs

  You’ll want to track relevant KPIs to measure the marketing effectiveness of each channel. Put top-of-the-funnel metrics aside and focus on conversion metrics. 

  These include :

  • Conversion rate
  • Average visit duration
  • Bounce rate

  1. Implement tracking and analytics tools

  Gathering customer data from every channel and centralising it in a single location is one of the biggest challenges of cross-channel analytics. Still, it’s made easier with the right tracking tool or analytics platform. 

  The trick is to choose a platform that lets you measure as many of your channels as possible in a single platform. With Matomo, for example, you can track search, paid search, social and email campaigns and your website analytics.

  1. Set up a multi-touch attribution model

  Now that you have all of your data in one place, you can set up a multi-touch attribution model that lets you understand the extent to which each marketing channel contributes to your overall success. 

  There are several attribution models to choose from, including :

  

  Each model has benefits and drawbacks, so choosing the right model for your organisation can be tricky. Rather than take a wild guess, evaluate each model against your marketing objectives, sales length cycle and data availability.

  For example, if you want to focus on optimising customer acquisition costs, a model that prioritises earlier touchpoints will be better. If you care about conversions, you might try a time decay model. 

  1. Turn data into insights with reports

  One of the big benefits of choosing a tool like Matomo, which consolidates data in one place, is that it significantly speeds up and simplifies reporting.

  When all the data is stored in one platform, you don’t need to spend hours combing through your social media platforms and copying and pasting analytics data into a spreadsheet. It’s all there and ready for you to run reports.

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  1. Take action

  There’s no point implementing a cross-channel analytics system if you aren’t going to take action. 

  But where should you start ?

  Optimising your budgets and prioritising marketing spend is a great starting point. Use your cross-channel insights to find your most effective marketing channels (they’re the ones that convert the most customers or have the highest ROI) and allocate more of your budget to them. 

  You can also optimise the channels that aren’t pulling their weight if social media is letting you down ; for example, experiment with tactics like social commerce that could drive more conversions. Alternatively, you could choose to stop investing entirely in these channels.

  Cross-channel analytics best practices

  If you already have a cross-channel analytics solution, take things to the next level with the following best practices. 

  Use a centralised solution to track everything

  Centralising your data in one analytics tool can streamline your marketing efforts and help you stay on top of your data. It won’t just save you from tabbing between different browsers or copying and pasting everything into a spreadsheet, but it can also make it easier to create reports. 

  Think about consumer privacy 

  If you are looking at a new cross-channel analytics tool, consider how it accounts for data privacy regulations in your area. 

  You’re going to be collecting a lot of data, so it’s important to respect their privacy wishes. 

  It’s best to choose a platform like Matomo that complies with the strictest privacy laws (CCPA, GDPR, etc.).

  Monitor data in real time

  So, you’ve got a holistic view of your marketing efforts by integrating all your channels into a single tool ?

  Great, now go further by monitoring the impact of your marketing efforts in real time.

  

  With a web analytics platform like Matomo, you can see who visits your site, what they do, and where they come from through features like the visits log report, which even lets you view individual user sessions. This lets you measure the impact of posting on a particular social channel or launching a new offer. 

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  Reallocate marketing budgets based on performance

  When you track every channel, you can use a multi-touch attribution model like position-based or time-decay to give every channel the credit it deserves. But don’t just credit each channel ; turn your valuable insights into action. 

  Use cross-channel attribution analytics data to reallocate your marketing budget to the most profitable channels or spend time optimising the channels that aren’t pulling their weight. 

  Cross-channel analytics platforms to get started with 

  The marketing analytics market is huge. Mordor Intelligence valued it at $6.31 billion in 2024 and expects it to reach $11.54 billion by 2029. Many of these platforms offer cross-channel analytics, but few can track the impact of multiple marketing channels in one place. 

  So, rather than force you to trawl through confusing product pages, we’ve shortlisted three of the best cross-channel analytics solutions. 

  Matomo

  

  Matomo is a web analytics platform that lets you collect and centralise your marketing data while giving you 100% accurate data. That includes search, social, e-commerce, campaign tracking data and comprehensive website analytics.

  Better still, you get the necessary tools to turn those insights into action. Custom reporting lets you track and visualise the metrics that matter, while conversion optimisation tools like built-in A/B testing, heatmaps, session recordings and more let you test your theories. 

  Google Analytics

  

  Google Analytics is the most popular and widely used tool on the market. The level of analysis and customisation you can do with it is impressive for a free tool. That includes tracking just about any event and creating reports from scratch. 

  Google Analytics provides some cross-channel marketing features and lets you track the impact of various channels, such as social and search, but there are a couple of drawbacks. 

  Privacy can be a concern because Google Analytics collects data from your customers for its own remarketing purposes. 

  It also uses data sampling to generate wider insights from a small subset of your data. This lack of accurate data reporting can cause you to generate false insights.

  With Google Analytics, you’ll also need to subscribe to additional tools to gain advanced insights into the user experience. So, consider that while this tool is free, you’ll need to pay for heatmaps, session recording and A/B testing tools to optimise effectively.

  Improvado

  

  Improvado is an analytics tool for sales and marketing teams that extracts thousands of metrics from hundreds of sources. It centralises data in data warehouses, from which you can create a range of marketing dashboards.

  While Improvado does have analytics capabilities, it is primarily an ETL (extraction, transform, load) tool for organisations that want to centralise all their data. That means marketers who aren’t familiar with data transformations may struggle to get their heads around the complexity of the platform.

  Make the most of cross-channel analytics with Matomo

  Cross-channel analytics is the only way to get a comprehensive view of your customer journey and understand how your channels work together to drive conversions.

  Then you’re dealing with so many channels and data ; keeping things as simple as possible is the key to success. That’s why over 1 million websites choose Matomo. 

  Our all-in-one analytics solution measures traditional web analytics, behavioural analytics, attribution and SEO, so you have 100% accurate data in one place. 

  Try it free for 21 days. No credit card required.

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• Attribution Tracking (What It Is and How It Works)

  23 février 2024, par Erin

  Facebook, TikTok, Google, email, display ads — which one is best to grow your business ? There’s one proven way to figure it out : attribution tracking.

  Marketing attribution allows you to see which channels are producing the best results for your marketing campaigns.

  In this guide, we’ll show you what attribution tracking is, why it’s important and how you can leverage it to accelerate your marketing success.

  What is attribution tracking ?

  By 2026, the global digital marketing industry is projected to reach $786.2 billion.

  With nearly three-quarters of a trillion U.S. dollars being poured into digital marketing every year, there’s no doubt it dominates traditional marketing.

  The question is, though, how do you know which digital channels to use ?

  By measuring your marketing efforts with attribution tracking.

  

  So, what is attribution tracking ?

  Attribution tracking is where you use software to keep track of different channels and campaign efforts to determine which channel you should attribute conversion to.

  In other words, you can (and should) use attribution tracking to analyse which channels are pushing the needle and which ones aren’t.

  By tracking your marketing efforts, you’ll be able to accurately measure the scale of impact each of your channels, campaigns and touchpoints have on a customer’s purchasing decision.

  If you don’t track your attribution, you’ll end up blindly pouring time, money, and effort into activities that may or may not be helpful.

  Attribution tracking simply gives you insight into what you’re doing right as a marketer — and what you’re doing wrong.

  By understanding which efforts and channels are driving conversions and revenue, you’ll be able to properly allocate resources toward winning channels to double down on growth.

  Matomo lets you track attribution across various channels. Whether you’re looking to track your conversions through organic, referral websites, campaigns, direct traffic, or social media, you can see all your conversions in one place.

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  Why attribution tracking is important

  Attribution tracking is crucial to succeed with your marketing since it shows you your most valuable channels.

  It takes the guesswork out of your efforts.

  You don’t need to scratch your head wondering what made your campaigns a success (or a failure).

  While most tools show you last click attribution by default, using attribution tracking, or marketing attribution, you can track revenue and conversions for each touchpoint.

  For example, a Facebook ad might have no led to a conversion immediately. But, maybe the visitor returned to your website two weeks later through your email campaign. Attribution tracking will give credit over longer periods of time to see the bigger picture of how your marketing channels are impacting your overall performance.

  Here are five reasons you need to be using attribution tracking in your business today :

  

  1. Measure channel performance

  The most obvious way attribution tracking helps is to show you how well each channel performs.

  When you’re using a variety of marketing channels to reach your audience, you have to know what’s actually doing well (and what’s not).

  This means having clarity on the performance of your :

  • Emails
  • Google Ads
  • Facebook Ads
  • Social media marketing
  • Search engine optimisation (SEO)
  • And more

  Attribution tracking allows you to measure each channel’s ROI and identify how much each channel impacted your campaigns.

  It gives you a more accurate picture of the performance of each channel and each campaign.

  With it, you can easily break down your channels by how much they drove sales, conversions, signups, or other actions.

  With this information, you can then understand where to further allocate your resources to fuel growth.

  2. See campaign performance over longer periods of time

  When you start tracking your channel performance with attribution tracking, you’ll gain new insights into how well your channels and campaigns are performing.

  The best part — you don’t just get to see recent performance.

  You get to track your campaign results over weeks or months.

  For example, if someone found you through Google by searching a question that your blog had an answer to, but they didn’t convert, your traditional tracking strategy would discount SEO.

  But, if that same person clicked a TikTok ad you placed three weeks later, came back, and converted — SEO would receive some attribution on the conversion.

  Using an attribution tracking tool like Matomo can help paint a holistic view of how your marketing is really doing from channel to channel over the long run.

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  3. Increase revenue

  Attribution tracking has one incredible benefit for marketers : optimised marketing spend.

  When you begin looking at how well your campaigns and your channels are performing, you’ll start to see what’s working.

  Attribution tracking gives you clarity into the performance of campaigns since it’s not just looking at the first time someone clicks through to your site. It’s looking at every touchpoint a customer made along the way to a conversion.

  By understanding what channels are most effective, you can pour more resources like time, money and labour into those effective channels.

  By doubling down on the winning channels, you’ll be able to grow like never before.

  Rather than trying to “diversify” your marketing efforts, lean into what’s working.

  This is one of the key strategies of an effective marketer to maximise your campaign returns and experience long-term success in terms of revenue.

  4. Improve profit margins

  The final benefit to attribution tracking is simple : you’ll earn more profit.

  Think about it this way : let’s say you’re putting 50% of your marketing spend into Facebook ads and 50% of your spend into email marketing.

  You do this for one year, allocating $500,000 to Facebook and $500,000 to email.

  Then, you start tracking attribution.

  You find that your Facebook ads are generating $900,000 in revenue. 

  That’s a 1,800% return on your investment.

  Not bad, right ?

  Well, after tracking your attribution, you see what your email revenue is.

  In the past year, you generated $1.7 million in email revenue.

  That’s a 3,400% return on your investment (close to the average return of email marketing across all industries).

  In this scenario, you can see that you’re getting nearly twice as much of a return on your marketing spend with email.

  So, the following year, you decide to go for a 75/25 split.

  Instead of putting $500,000 into both email and Facebook ads and email, you put $750,000 into email and $250,000 into Facebook ads.

  You’re still diversifying, but you’re doubling down on what’s working best.

  The result is that you’ll be able to get more revenue by investing the same amount of money, leaving you with higher profit margins.

  Different types of marketing attribution tracking

  There are several types of attribution tracking models in marketing.

  Depending on your goals, your business and your preferred method, there are a variety of types of attribution tracking you can use.

  Here are the six main types of attribution tracking :

  

  1. Last interaction

  Last interaction attribution model is also called “last touch.”

  It’s one of the most common types of attribution. The way it works is to give 100% of the credit to the final channel a customer interacted with before they converted into a customer.

  This could be through a paid ad, direct traffic, or organic search.

  One potential drawback of last interaction is that it doesn’t factor in other channels that may have assisted in the conversion. However, this model can work really well depending on the business.

  2. First interaction

  This is the opposite of the previous model.

  First interaction, or “first touch,” is all about the first interaction a customer has with your brand.

  It gives 100% of the credit to the channel (i.e. a link clicked from a social media post). And it doesn’t report or attribute anything else to another channel that someone may have interacted with in your marketing mix.

  For example, it won’t attribute the conversion or revenue if the visitor then clicked on an Instagram ad and converted. All credit would be given to the first touch which in this case would be the social media post. 

  The first interaction is a good model to use at the top of your funnel to help establish which channels are bringing leads in from outside your audience.

  3. Last non-direct

  Another model is called the last non-direct attribution model. 

  This model seeks to exclude direct traffic and assigns 100% credit for a conversion to the final channel a customer interacted with before becoming a customer, excluding clicks from direct traffic.

  For instance, if someone first comes to your website from an emai campaignl, and then, a week later, directly visits and buys a product, the email campaign gets all the credit for the sale.

  This attribution model tells a bit more about the whole sales process, shedding some more light on what other channels may have influenced the purchase decision.

  4. Linear

  Another common attribution model is linear.

  This model distributes completely equal credit across every single touchpoint (that’s tracked). 

  Imagine someone comes to your website in different ways : first, they find it through a Google search, then they click a link in an email from your campaign the next day, followed by visiting from a Facebook post a few days later, and finally, a week later, they come from a TikTok ad. 

  Here’s how the attribution is divided among these sources :

  • 25% Organic
  • 25% Email
  • 25% Facebook
  • 25% TikTok ad

  This attirubtion model provides a balanced perspective on the contribution of various sources to a user’s journey on your website.

  5. Position-based

  Position-based attribution is when you give 40% credit to both the first and last touchpoints and 20% credit is spread between the touchpoints in between.

  This model is preferred if you want to identify the initial touchpoint that kickstarted a conversion journey and the final touchpoint that sealed the deal.

  The downside is that you don’t gain much insight into the middle of the customer journey, which can make it hard to make effective decisions.

  For example, someone may have been interacting with your email newsletter for seven weeks, which allowed them to be nurtured and build a relationship with you.

  But that relationship and trust-building effort will be overlooked by the blog post that brought them in and the social media ad that eventually converted them.

  6. Time decay

  The final attribution model is called time decay attribution.

  This is all about giving credit based on the timing of the interactions someone had with your brand.

  For example, the touchpoints that just preceded the sale get the highest score, while the first touchpoints get the lowest score.

  For example, let’s use that scenario from above with the linear model :

  • 25% SEO
  • 25% Email
  • 25% Facebook ad
  • 25% Organic TikTok

  But, instead of splitting credit by 25% to each channel, you weigh the ones closer to the sale with more credit.

  Instead, time decay may look at these same channels like this :

  • 5% SEO (6 weeks ago)
  • 20% Email (3 weeks ago)
  • 30% Facebook ad (1 week ago)
  • 45% Organic TikTok (2 days ago)

  One downside is that it underestimates brand awareness campaigns. And, if you have longer sales cycles, it also isn’t the most accurate, as mid-stage nurturing and relationship building are underlooked. 

  Leverage Matomo : A marketing attribution tool

  Attribution tracking is a crucial part of leading an effective marketing strategy.

  But it’s impossible to do this without the right tools.

  A marketing attribution tool can give you insights into your best-performing channels automatically. 

  

  One of the best marketing attribution tools available is Matomo, a web analytics tool that helps you understand what’s going on with your website and different channels in one easy-to-use dashboard.

  With Matomo, you get marketing attribution as a plug-in or within Matomo On-Premise or for free in Matomo Cloud.

  The best part is it’s all done with crystal-clear data. Matomo gives you 100% accurate data since it doesn’t use data sampling on any plans like Google Analytics.

  To start tracking attribution today, try Matomo’s 21-day free trial. No credit card required.

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