UpStream Blog

Using big data for attribution has become increasingly important for data driven organizations to understand what’s working in their marketing lineup. Several methodologies have been used over the years to measure and give credit to marketing actions. Understanding the differences and impact of each methodology is critical to choosing the most accurate methodology for your business.

Modern direct marketers understand that using data and analytics to make decisions is smart. One of the challenges that marketers face is that their analytic environments are ad hoc, but what they need are operationalized analytics.

This is part two of a two part series on setting up Hadoop. Link to Part 1

This is part one of a two part series on setting up Hadoop. Link to part 2  

These days, it seems that marketing attribution comes in many flavors, but most of them aren’t so refined. According to the November 2012 Econsultancy’s Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: Making Sense of Marketing Attribution, produced in partnership with Adobe, the majority of marketers are using some sort of attribution, though a large portion – 28% of both client and agency respondents – are still using last click attribution.

What retailer wouldn’t want to increase operating margin by 60%? That’s right - none. So if you aren’t leveraging your big data for analytical insight you’ll quickly fall behind your competitors who are. You keep hearing this term – Big Data – but what does it mean? Is it a meaningless buzzword or something that will make you look like a rock star with your senior management?  Read on.

In a recent article, Google’s head of retail, Todd Pollack, discussed how conversion paths are becoming increasingly more complex. Shoppers bounce back and forth across channels as part of the purchasing path, or "flight map". To help marketers understand how the internet has changed customer purchasing habits, Google created an e-book called the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), named for what they call the online decision-making moment. 

A marketing colleague whom I have known a long time recently asked me for suggestions to improve his company’s mobile advertising. I had to be honest with him that I really don’t pay attention to mobile advertising and that it was a little like asking a sushi chef to cook you a well done rib-eye steak. I could certainly tell him about what I have seen in the industry, but I should really go do some homework first.

I was recently reading an article by Facebook’s head of measurement, Brad Smallwood. The topic was the inadequacy of existing techniques for gauging reach and, to a lesser extent, the poor state of existing tools for measuring campaign performance. Anyone who has worked in marketing, at an ad network, or at a technology enabler for marketing is very familiar with this topic. Truthfully not much has changed in the measurement and analytics business for quite some time; innovation has been rather lack luster. I have to wonder whether GRPs (gross ratings points) or other tools that measure reach and frequency across multiple media types really the way to go, or is it just a bit of smoke and mirrors to help facilitate media buys?

Do you know what drives your customers' behavior? More specifically, do you understand the impact each marketing investment you make has on your customers' incremental buying behavior? Intuitively, you know this is a complex equation that depends of both the type of marketing treatment that reached the customer and how much time elapsed between the marketing treatment and buying event.