The Case for Taking Attribution Out of the Marketing Department

And the technology challenges ahead

Many marketers have digital attribution down, but the next step is creating a holistic attribution model that applies to all areas of their business—and that might mean relinquishing ownership to another internal team. Ad tech consultant Rob Griffin, who has helped brands and marketers with their digital tech and data strategies for two decades, spoke with eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher about the organizational and technological challenges associated with pursuing more holistic attribution practices.

eMarketer:

Between your time as a consultant and working with ad agencies, you’ve been exposed to many brands’ attribution needs and challenges. What are you seeing now?

Rob Griffin:

Everybody’s moving down the road of attribution. However, brands are struggling with the disconnect between the tools they set up to do basic digital marketing attribution, and real business intelligence and sales impact.

Some of this comes from the nature of the systems. Some of it has to do with the fact that sales and revenue data might be sitting in Salesforce or SQL, and then other attribution tools are sitting somewhere else and pulling in data from the ad server, DSP [demand-side platform] or third-party social tool.

Interview conducted on December 5, 2017

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