It’s the Holiday Season and gifts are given. When you receive a gift, you most likely want to thank the person who gave it you. But do you bother to also thank the salesperson who sold the gift, the person who packaged the item, the person who manufactured it, or the person who designed it? Of course not, as there is rarely a way to track that data.

But all those people played an important role in giving you the gift. Without any of the previous steps, you may not have gotten that Snuggie that you always wanted.

Online advertising has the ability to track the whole funnel. From the first time someone spots an ad, to the first time they visit your site, to the final sales decision. The actions they take and the content they consume through the process are all important to the success of the campaign.

That’s were Attribution comes into focus. Previously we have discussed setting goals and developing content for your campaign. But it is also important to figure out which content is hitting which goals. The levels of success you assign to each step is important to consider.

When marketing to college students, is the college newspaper web site the first time they see the ad for your Boutique? How much weight should we give the first encounter? What about the last ad they see when surfing the web before they finally click on the banner to visit your site? Is that click from the college student more important?

We can also factor in offline elements. For example, in a college newspaper you advertise a coupon which the student redeems, but what brought them to your site first though was a banner advertisement. Which played a more important role in the sale?

There is no tried and true set of rules for Attribution, but every element of a sale must be considered. It is not enough to assume that because a college student clicked on a banner that is the 100% reason why he or she elected to purchase. Many factors play a role in these sales.

At OnCampus Advertising we can help you determine the attribution model and weigh each factor of the campaign’s effectiveness to marketing to college students.