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ARTICLE

Four Fatal Flaws of Digital Attribution and How to Address Them: Part II

August 10, 2016 — by Ari Buchalter    

In this 4-part series, we continue to examine the four fatal flaws of attribution in today’s digital marketing landscape. Last time we discussed the first fatal flaw of Last-touch Attribution and now tackle the second fatal flaw:

Fatal Flaw #2: Reliance on the Cookie

The Problem. Another well-known flaw is the fact that many attribution systems rely on cookies as the common “key” for joining data. As most marketers know, the cookie is becoming increasingly unreliable for multiple reasons. For starters, internet users are increasingly clearing cookies, and some browsers default to not accepting third-party cookies at all. At the same time, digital media consumption is rapidly shifting from web to in-app environments, where browser cookies don’t apply and other identifiers are needed. And of course, the proliferation of connected devices means that single-device identifiers, such as cookies, cannot capture a full view of media touchpoints and consumer actions across multiple devices. A cookie-based view of consumers is simply no longer sufficient to power targeting or attribution across the modern digital landscape.

The Complication. Numerous alternative identity solutions have emerged, but typically fall short in at least one of several ways. Some large media companies offer large-scale identity solutions but don’t allow this information to leave their systems, making it useless for applications and integrations outside their walled-garden environments. Some point-solution vendors offer standalone identity services for a substantial additional cost but are disconnected from the buying systems, requiring integration that can introduce latency and leaves data spread across multiple systems. These solutions also often involve probabilistic cross-device methods that result in targeting & attribution being wrong much of the time, leading to missed opportunities and significant waste. Many solutions focus on the cross-device problem but in web contexts are only able to link devices that accept and retain cookies in the first place, dramatically reducing their effective scale. In short, most solutions on the market fail in one way or another to provide the actionability required.

The Resolution. To effectively power attribution in the post-cookie world, marketers will increasingly need solutions that deliver against three key criteria: First, solutions should address both single device recognition (in cookie- and non-cookie-based web contexts, mobile in-app contexts, and others) as well as cross-device association. Second, they should be fully integrated into real-time execution, for targeting and measurement on all touchpoints across all media channels. Third, they should be open and interoperable, making the data freely available to marketers to power their internal solutions and partner integrations. In addition, since many confusing and in fact misleading claims are often made about the “accuracy” of solutions (especially when leveraging probabilistic methods), marketers should confirm the performance of the solution on their own audience data to validate how correct it is and over what scale.

Next time we’ll discuss the third fatal flaw: Missing the Offline View.