Real Attribution Insights: Changing consumer behavior

Since the launch of Real Attribution there has been a huge shift in both campaign performance and publisher behavior. These changes are apparent at the individual publisher level and also at a global level within TradeTracker. The most noticeable changes to the customer journey, in terms of the number of active publishers, average conversion path length, number of touchpoints involved, and the path diversity, will be explored further.

Real Attribution has changed the way in which publishers promote campaigns. Publishers now have the opportunity to earn commission at every stage of the customer journey, and are adjusting their promotions in order to maximise their benefit from the Real Attribution model. This has resulted in changes to the conversion paths of these advertisers.

Average Path Length

A noticeable change in campaigns running with TradeTracker’s Real Attribution, is that the average path length increased. The increased number of publishers positioned in the initiating stages of the customer journey have caused an growth in the average path length, from 18.74 days to 25.05 days. This is increasing week-on-week as more publishers sign up to attribution campaigns. At an individual publisher level, we have seen evidence of publishers adapting their promotions to suit the Real Attribution model. The length of individual paths in which only one specific publisher was involved also increased. These longer average path lengths are indicative of publishers being better able to spread their influence over the full customer journey.

Number of Touchpoints

An expected change was an increase in the number of touchpoints involved in a single conversion. Analysing all attribution conversion paths together shows an increase in the average number of touchpoints involved with transaction from 2.43 to 3.16. A greater number number of touchpoints created by publishers means more exposure, branding and, ultimately, more transactions for the advertiser.

This increase is mainly due to two factors:

1) The number of additional large (media) publishers signing up for campaigns;
2) The additional traffic sent by current top publishers, as theri eCPC increases with Real Attribution.

Path Diversity (publisher level /site type level)

It is also interesting to note that a greater diversity of publishers are promoting campaigns. The average number of publishers involved in a transaction changed from 1.9 to 2.7. When looking at this from a site type perspective, we see that the average number of site types involved within a path increases from 1.4 to 2.1. There are two main reasons for this change:

1) Campaigns dominated by specific publishers or site types on a last click model are now also more attractive for additional publishers and site types;
2) Advertisers who previously didn’t want to work with specific site types are now opening up their campaigns to these publishers again as every touchpoint gets its fair share of the commission.

The evidence provided suggests that Real Attribution has not only caused a shift in publisher behaviour, but in customer behaviour too. Publishers start focusing more on the complete
customer journey, rather than the last stages, generating greater awareness and interest for the advertisers they are promoting.