You’ll never track the effects of your marketing with 100% accuracy ❌
There I said it. Pretty bold for a marketing agency owner to say but it’s true, let me explain…
All you can do is calculate the best guess from the tools that you have at your disposal. Whether that be platform metrics + GA or a fully fledge £100k+ AI powered attribution model.
As soon as you become comfortable with that and develop a system/calculation for what your ‘best guess’ is coupled with what is deemed profitable for your business then everything becomes a lot easier.
Consistently seeking 100% attribution accuracy will be a huge resource drain on your business. Don’t believe me? Let’s have some fun! Here’s a great example of a completely uncrackable conversion in the style of a GCSE maths question…
“Jess is a 14 year old who sees an ad on Instagram for some trainers by a large chain store which operates online and in-store. Her birthday is next month. She tells her grandad she wants the trainers for her birthday and where to buy them.
Being old school, Jess’ grandad doesn’t shop online, doesn’t have a smartphone or email and always pays in cash. He walks to one of the chain stores, buys the trainers with cash and takes a physical printed receipt.
Explain how the chain store can track and attribute the purchase of Jess’ trainers to the Instagram ad?”
Although extreme, this ☝️ actually happens… every day. Plus we could even add another untrackable conversion to this by saying: “When Jess gets her new trainers, her friend Alice thinks they’re really cool. Later that week Alice buys herself the same pair from her local outlet of the same chain store”
TL;DR Find the ‘best guess’ attribution model within the budget and resources you have, find your point of diminishing returns (profitability) then stick with it.