Customer habits are ever-changing and their interactions
with brands prior to a sale ever more complicated. Here, we explain why it is
necessary for businesses to change the way they deduplicate, in order to keep
up with their customers today.
DEDUPLICATION AND THE LAST-CLICK MODEL
Businesses usually work with many partners to reach out to
their customers when advertising online. Traditionally, when we talk about
deduplication, we are referring the process of attributing a sale to only one
partner. Most commonly, this is based on a last-click model, which means that
advertisers attribute the sale to the very last partner the customer was
interacting with for payment.
This raises the following question: why does deduplication
usually work around that one last touch point? To answer that, we need to bear
in mind that marketers are often conversion-oriented and focus on the last
activity immediately before the sale, and tracking technology has not been
advanced enough to look beyond the conversion. Therefore, the quickest way to
attribute a sale is with the help of the last cookie, which is instantly and
always available.
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However, the last-click model provides a myopic view of the
customers’ decision-making cycle. There is often complex behaviour behind a
sale, as customers interact with a large number of partners before arriving at
a decision. Furthermore, these partners are aware that they play a large role
in influencing the customers’ decision. By giving them little or no credit,
marketers are weakening their marketing activities as they lose control of the
partners’ performance.
ENTER ATTRIBUTION MODELLING
Since it became obvious that there is a bigger story behind
a conversion, marketers have turned to attribution modelling for a better
picture of how the marketing budget is spent. This concept of attribution
modelling refers to the setting of rules that assign credit to each channel,
which has directly or indirectly contributed to a generated sale or any other
conversion target. In other words, marketers are able to determine a percentage
for each channel according to how important the channel has been to their
business. By monitoring sales in alignment with the chosen attribution model,
marketers can amend or justify the marketing strategy for each channel.
Yet, when it comes to paying out commissions, the majority
end up returning to the last-click model due to technology limitations and the
lack of sufficient data. This means that they have kept the processes of
deduplication and attribution modelling completely separate from one another
and for different purposes.
MODERN DEDUPLICATION STRENGTHENS MARKETING STRATEGIES BY
INCORPORATING SPLIT COMMISSION
Since marketers already use attribution modelling to spot
the synergies across different channels and tracking technology is becoming
innovative enough to capture customer journeys accurately, companies would
significantly benefit when all valued partners are rewarded appropriately.
In order to do so, modern deduplication technology makes use
of identified customer touch points in the decision-making cycle and aligns
them against predefined rules according to the attribution model. Then, the
commission is split among those partners, which are important to the business
and the users have interacted with. This applies to all performance-based
remunerations that are not fixed fees, e.g. cost per sale.
For example, let’s say that a customer made a purchase from you
after interacting with your brand several times and the total commission adds
up to 100€. The traditional deduplication process would reward one partner all
100€, while modern deduplication splits this commission among your strategic
partners who were involved in the sales. If you have set to reward the partner
initiating sales 20%, assisting sales 30% and closing sales 50% of the total
commission, the corresponding partners would receive 20€, 30€ and 50€
respectively.
By moving away from the last-click model and taking into
account the complex customer decision-making cycle, marketers can be assured of
an optimized marketing strategy, as well as a boost of their business KPIs
through accurate payout processes and more control over their strategic partners.
On top of that, since the payout process is more closely aligned to reality,
marketers will also be able to maintain more sustainable and profitable
partnerships for their businesses.
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