Self Reported Attribution

Marketers love to talk about attribution tools and models.

Does it make sense to use last touch vs data-driven?

What about 1 day view and 7 day click?

Should we invest in an MTA tool?

While some of the pieces of the attribution conversation can get quite scientific, I want to keep it simple in this post. Here I’m focusing on self reported attribution.

This method doesn’t require any fancy data model or code snippet, it’s just a question within a lead form. Typically phrased as, “How did you hear about us?”

Self reported attribution can provide a marketer with much more insight into which channels are actually contributing to leads. As I’ve been working to incorporate this data in all of my client reports, I’ve found that leads often share the channel which was most impactful to them when filling out the self reported attribution field. This means that just because a lead filled out a form coming from an ad on Instagram doesn’t mean that Instagram should get all the credit.

For example, I recently ran an analysis for one of my clients to explore the impact that other channels had on Meta ad performance. I found that when leads who were attributed to Meta based off of a last touch model reported that they heard of this client’s brand on the radio (yes radio), they converted to paying customers 67% of the time.

When these last-touch Meta leads self-reported that they heard of this client’s brand only on Meta, they converted to paying customers 28% of the time.

The big takeaway isn’t that radio is better than Meta for driving leads here, but rather that this client’s audience needs to experience multiple touch points before they convert.

No MTA or fingerprinting tool could have provided this information. Now, this insight is having a significant impact on our strategy moving forward.

Setting up and collecting self reported attribution data is relatively easy, and can make a massive difference in understanding how customers find a brand.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.