How companies achieve competitive advantages with multichannel tracking
Companies can gain a competitive advantage through the targeted control and evaluation of their online marketing, which is why they must invest in their online marketing measures in the most targeted and cost-efficient way possible. In the opinion of Arithnea To date, the monitoring and evaluation of online marketing has often been based on islands of information. Companies operate their own web tracking and web analytics systems, record user data from their websites and online stores and determine statistical values on conversion paths. At the same time, they receive evaluations from numerous service providers and partners - such as agencies that place Internet banners or take care of search engine advertising, as well as affiliate partners who advertise the company's products on their websites. This results in two central weaknesses:- There is no standardized database. Each party involved bases its measurements on different assumptions and defines unique visitors or multiple visitors differently, for example. The preparation and interpretation of the data also differs considerably in some cases.- Online shoppers generally pass through a wide variety of stages before buying a product and often move through several online advertising media in the process. If a conversion occurs, each of the advertising partners involved will claim this for themselves in their analysis. Due to these weaknesses, the data cannot be evaluated uniformly and it is not clear which advertising media are decisive for conversions; as a result, a company does not know exactly in which it should invest more and in which it should reduce its expenditure. multichannel tracking can provide a remedy here. The idea behind this is that a company measures all online marketing channels itself, records them in a standardized system and evaluates them there. This provides it with a consistently standardized database and allows it to attribute conversions to the individual channels in proportion to their contribution with the help of so-called attribution models. First, the chains of the different customer journeys are usually defined and the value contributions of the individual advertising media are determined based on experience or assumptions. The conversions are then statically allocated to the individual advertising media on the basis of the defined value contributions. The data is then continuously analyzed, the models are adjusted and it is observed which constellations achieve the best conversion results. This allows the optimal models to be found. In a second step, dynamic attribution models are usually developed that automatically adapt the distribution of conversion values across the advertising media to changes based on the measured data and the statistics derived from it. "Multichannel tracking not only allows companies to invest in their online marketing in a more targeted manner and thus gain a competitive advantage in the now extremely competitive digital advertising market. They can also further optimize their conversion rates," explains Christian Weckopp, Head of Digital Marketing at Arithnea. "If they have the necessary IT resources, they can also take care of the technical implementation themselves. Nowadays, this is feasible with any powerful web analytics tool. It is also possible to get started with free systems such as Google Analytics. However, you should get help from experienced consultants to create the attribution models. The success of multichannel tracking stands and falls with these models and their development requires comprehensive project and practical know-how."
