The ability to map sales back to content is a practice known as attribution, and it’s the black box of content marketing. Every content marketer struggles to achieve success here. Why? Because the ability to understand what drives a customer to ultimately convert is a bit of a mystery.

While there is no ideal way to attribute down to the dollar, there are ways that content marketers can assess what’s working, dump what’s ineffective, and allocate the budget to produce better quality content accordingly. Ideally, the attribution model will inform senior leaders, sales, and other critical stakeholders of content’s impact on business results.

Types of Content Attribution Models

Given how complex content attribution really is, it’s no surprise that Contently’s 2023 survey revealed only 38% of content marketers were satisfied or very satisfied with their ability to measure content’s success. However, marketers that can identify the content performing well at each stage of the buyer’s journey ultimately gain and produce better content strategies, given the data that they have at their disposal.

Yet content attribution models can look different across companies. For smaller businesses with simpler marketing systems, tighter budgets, and shorter sales cycles, a single-touch attribution model may be sufficient. There are two types of single-touch attribution models.

The first-touch attribution model gives all the credit for a lead to the first touchpoint in the customer journey, and the last-touch model gives all credit for a sale to the final touchpoint.

Then, there is multi-touch attribution, which factors in all of the actions a buyer typically takes during the sales cycle. These models can take time to build, especially for newer companies without mature content.

When designed correctly, multi-touch content attribution models are better suited for companies in the B2B space with longer, more complex sales cycles that leverage three or more marketing channels. This can take shape in a couple of different ways.

In a linear multi-touch attribution model, all actions are given the same credit or percentage value, whether a consumer downloads a whitepaper or stops by the vendor booth at a conference. However, in a weighted multi-touch attribution model, each action has a different value or percentage, signifying a difference in the impact these actions have on the buyer’s interaction with the brand.

How Content Attribution Can Drive Your Strategy

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could understand how each content asset actually influences a consumer’s motivation to buy? There would be tremendous value in that! But we’re not psychologists (or mind readers), so we do the best with what we have.

To make reasonable assumptions about consumer behavior, we must look at what content channels, formats, and topics resonate with our audience and figure out when they’re likely to engage with those content pieces. While each individual customer journey is unique, a multi-touch attribution model can highlight key trends among your top personas. Using this unique information, your content strategy and attribution techniques will evolve.

The data you gather from your content attribution efforts can also increase efficiency. For one thing, proving content contributes to conversions is a great way to prove to senior leaders that your hard work is paying off. The data you’re gathering about what assets, which channels, and when your audience is engaging in the buyer’s journey can also help you determine where to allocate your budget most effectively.

Finally, this content attribution work helps align marketing with sales. When you understand how a consumer experiences and interacts with your brand, you can create a more compelling and engaging experience for them throughout every customer touchpoint; using MarTech and sales tools working together, you can map the entire customer journey to get a broader picture of your brand’s engagement.

Dissecting the Challenges of Multi-Touch Attribution

In an ideal world, any B2B marketer would be using multi-touch attribution. But building an accurate model is challenging. You need a well-established marketing pipeline and mature content production to get the whole picture. That’s why it’s the last stage of Contently’s Content Maturity Model.

You need the right tools in your MarTech stack to build an effective multi-touch attribution model. You might even consider more sophisticated attribution platforms like Dreamdata or Rockerbox. To check your results, you can supplement your research with a backup method, like surveys or customer interviews, in addition to attribution software.

As you dive deeper into attribution, you may discover more challenges in building multi-touch attribution models. Remember that no model is perfect, and consider the roadblocks as you find a system that works for you.

Certain content touchpoints may be harder to track.

According to CMI, the consensus among analysts is that roughly 70% of a buyer’s decision-making process happens before they fill out their first form or speak to a sales representative. So how did they get there?

Content. They self-educate! It’s challenging to track self-education because customers often educate before they are in a serious stage of the funnel. How did they initially learn about your brand? What resources helped them decide it was time to reach out? Some content marketers use gating as a way to secure content leads, but this is slowly becoming an outdated practice. A consumer wants information, not to give up their own.

Not all touchpoints are equal in value.

However, once you can track the consumer, you can give a different weight to each interaction they have with your brand. Different interactions along the typical customer journey may hold different weights in driving prospects down the funnel. While possible, assigning weight values to other interactions will be a complex process that may involve intricate calculations. Even with some of the more sophisticated multi-touch attribution tools, there will be limitations on the data. Trust your instincts when they say you have enough information to conclude.

Organizations may not be ideally structured for it.

In larger organizations, budgets are often allocated so that they are tied to specific channel-level goals. Multiple teams may need to align around a unified attribution model for successful multi-touch attribution rather than rely on traditional ways of analyzing success. This can require an organizational mindset shift.

It doesn’t account for other external factors.

Multi-touch attribution, while helpful at a macro level, doesn’t account for the fact that the customer journey is not linear. Other factors are at play, including the role of brand equity or an already loyal customer base. It can fail to account for external factors that significantly impact attribution results – pricing, promotions, seasonality, and the economy.

Attribution tools need to keep up with changes in technology.

As consumer expectations evolve, so does the technology that powers them. Content marketers constantly face new obstacles as tech rapidly advances – changing search algorithm updates, new social media channels, browser privacy settings, and more. These changes pose obstacles when it comes to multi-touch attribution.

In 2024, third-party cookies will no longer be available in Google Chrome. This means more users can browse the internet anonymously, making tracking more challenging. Attribution will become even more complex — and we need to be prepared to innovate and account for uncertainty. It seems that the future is a black box.

3 Examples of Multi-Touch Attribution

So how can you succeed at multi-touch attribution in your organization? It’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. The customer journey looks different for brands across industries and company sizes. Businesses often take various approaches and rely on a range of tools to build successful multi-touch attribution models. Let’s dive into a few examples of brands doing it well.

Mockingbird

After joining Mockingbird, Marjorie Chelius, Vice President of Marketing, recognized the complexities of the typical customer journey for the product. First, half of the strollers are given as gifts, with the purchase cycle lasting three to nine months – a long time for a largely direct-to-consumer product.

Plus, buyers engage in roughly 15 different touch points before purchasing. And with a multi-channel distribution model – selling strollers on its website, at Target, and on sites like Babylist – tracking the customer journey was even more difficult.

Mockingbird decided to take a multi-prong approach to content attribution. A critical element was conducting ongoing market research from the start – scouring customer reviews, for instance, and interviewing moms. The company also collected data from post-checkout surveys on purchases to measure the role of unpaid channels in the customer journey.

Recognizing the need for a multi-touch attribution model to get the full story, Mockingbird turned to Rockerbox, an attribution software tool, to uncover the channels performing well and better understand customers’ paths to purchase. And for Media Mix Modeling, the company purchased the Recast tool.

The key findings? Along with word-of-mouth referrals, many customers learn about Mockingbird via influencers and paid social ads. Interestingly, they often view Mockingbird paid ads on social media and then conduct their research on Google.

With these insights, Mockingbird removed inefficient spending on bottom-of-funnel retargeting on paid social and branded search. “We earned back 15% of our paid spending budget in Q4 2021—and we haven’t looked back since,” Chelius says. “We felt confident that we did not need to put another paid ad in front of customers once they were hooked initially.”

Another contributing factor to the decision: Mockingbird has a position on top recommendation sites (Lucie’s List, Babylist, and What to Expect, as examples), so when buyers visit these sites to do research, Mockingbird already shows up where it counts.

Based on the learnings from its content attribution model, Mockingbird plans to invest in influencers, social channels, and public relations this year.

7shifts

The marketing team at 7shifts, an employee scheduling and team management platform for restaurants, faced a common problem: the inability to track the specifics behind the B2B customer journey and identify which content efforts to replicate. Initially, the marketing team was tracking last-click conversions and then first-touch conversions, but there was a lot of important information they didn’t have.

“Each of (the single-touch models) separately didn’t make much sense,” says Vahag Aydinyan, Content Marketing Manager at 7shifts. “There was something we were missing in the middle.” Default analytics tools (like Google Analytics) simply didn’t cut it.

7shifts decided to purchase Dreamdata, a B2B revenue attribution software tool. Dreamdata integrates with different software (like Hubspot, Google Ads, and Marketo) to give a complete picture.

Through its content attribution model, 7shifts realized the value of product-agonistic mid-funnel content that helped the target audience in the buyer journey, like the free templates and digital tools for restaurant management.

“We realized people downloaded (templates) before converting at some point,” Aydinyan says.

Now, 7shifts has more information, so they can focus their time and finances on what drives results. But Aydinyan warns marketers not to get lost in the weeds of looking at individual customer journeys.

“It’s important to identify the main KPIs you want to track and focus on those,” he says.

Rally

When Kurt Dunphy started as Growth Manager at Rally in June 2020, building a content attribution model was top of mind. The startup, which automates and streamlines legal processes for businesses and their lawyers, was looking to scale up quickly, and Dunphy knew how important it would be to prove the value of his marketing efforts.

“You really can’t perform at a high level if you don’t know what’s driving results,” Dunphy says.

Upon Dunphy joining the company, Rally didn’t have a clear marketing pipeline. They started by launching a paid advertising program, and then organic content came a few months later.

But with limited tools, Dunphy wanted to understand what was driving high-quality leads. So Rally integrated Ruler Analytics software into its MarTech stack, allowing Dunphy and his colleagues to answer that question. More than two years later, and with a more mature pipeline, Dunphy can leverage Ruler to see which organic and paid channels are actually driving revenue (not just leads) through a multi-touch attribution model.

Ruler is Dunphy’s main source of truth, but it’s not 100 percent perfect (as is true for any attribution tool). But by looking at buyer journeys at the macro level, Dunphy knows which content efforts to scrap and which to double down on – and he’s often surprised by what he learns. He discovered, for example, that Rally’s content on TikTok wasn’t contributing to the buyer cycle as much as the app’s ads manager suggested.

Sure, there are ways to attribute content to sales without a tool like Ruler, Dunphy says, but it’s much more challenging. “You can put HTML-embedded links in [blog posts] or forms and see what people fill out,” Dunphy says. “But it’s way more of a black box.”

Getting Started with Content Attribution Models

Remember to start small when building a content attribution model, especially if you’re working at a young company without much mature content or a well-established marketing pipeline. And look at Contently’s Content Maturity Model, a step-by-step framework for content marketers looking to build a long-term measurement plan.

At a high level, the model encourages marketers to focus on content operations and identifying their KPIs, then work their way down the funnel by measuring lead generation. Over time, as your marketing pipeline matures, you can map your content back to the pipeline.

Ultimately, no content attribution model is perfect. But, as Chelius advises, accept the limitations of data and “gut check” your findings using a second method. And remember that, while challenging to build, a multi-touch approach for a complex sales cycle is much better than last-touch alone, which fails to articulate the whole story.

When you can track the buyer’s journey and understand what drives sales, you know what your audience craves at every stage of the funnel. With the right attribution model, you can create a more strategic content strategy that helps you tell your brand story and efficiently leverage your budget and resources.

Request a demo to better understand how Contently can help you create an ROI-driven strategy and content measurement plan.

The post The Black Box of Content Attribution: How to Engage With Consumers More Authentically appeared first on Contently.

It goes to show: You can plan out all the research and intelligent content strategy choices, but sometimes you just make a gut decision that works out. (These mailbags are consistently among our top-performing posts every month.)

I usually advise against making content strategy decisions with your gut. But if you do, surround yourself with people willing to tell you your idea is awful. Or, at the very least, people who make fun of you when you start humble-bragging about your content marketing column with Mac Miller GIFs.

ON TO THE MAILBAG.

Monetization! You barely discuss how to monetize content. Creating and distributing is all fine, but once you do that, what’s next? How do you start producing revenue off your content? What are the options available and what’s right for me?

—Eyal, Tel Aviv

What’s up, Eyal? Fun fact: I lived in Tel Aviv for the first month I spent running The Content Strategist. I felt like such a badass editor because even when I woke up at 11 a.m., it was still only 4 a.m. back in New York.

The main reason I don’t talk very much about monetizing content is that most brands simply aren’t ready for that yet. In fact, it’s the last step in Rebecca Lieb’s content marketing maturity model.

However, I do think it’s possible for brands to monetize before they hit the “run” stage. Part of the beauty of content marketing is that there are more flexible approaches to monetization than there are in traditional media.

Usually, content monetization falls into three stages:

Attribution: The point at which you can effectively calculate hard ROI for your content marketing. When your CEO knows that if he puts $1 into content, he’ll get $2 out, that’s monetization.

There are a few models for attributing content to revenue. (Here’s the multi-touch one we use.) Remember, though, that direct revenue is just the bull’s-eye in the five rings of content marketing ROI. There are other ways for content to boost your brand, but tying them to concrete dollar amounts isn’t as simple.

Bartering: If your content is killing it, you’ll eventually reach a point when your audience is big and valuable enough for you to barter with other outlets. It’s a great way to get marketing and advertising opportunities for free. Plus, bartering is hip! All the cool kids in Brooklyn are doing it.

Essentially, you’re trading access to your audience for access to another audience. I’ll give you a few examples. We regularly swap ads between CMI’s Chief Content Officer magazine and Contently Quarterly. We forged an editorial partnership with the Digiday Awards. And on Thursday, I’m doing a webinar with HubSpot about executive buy-in for content marketing, which HubSpot has been promoting in its newsletter for weeks. (We’ve also been promoting it to our list of 100,000 email subscribers.)

All of these programs would normally come with a five-figure price tag, but since we also have an influential magazine and blog, we’re able to get them for free.

The key, of course, is finding the right partnerships. Reach out to like-minded companies with similar audiences. You never want to betray your audience’s trust and promote something they won’t find interesting.

Selling ads: Ah, the final frontier.

Over the last two years, marketers have started monetizing their content like traditional media outlets—particularly as brands start poaching folks from media companies.

For instance, David Beebe left ABC to run Marriott’s content program two and a half years ago. Since then, Marriott has started licensing its award-winning short films and TV shows to distributors while beginning to think about selling ads in Marriott Traveler, the company’s travel magazine.

“That money goes toward producing more content,” Beebe said. “If you scale it right, marketing starts funding itself.”

(Full disclosure: Marriott is a Contently client, and Marriott Traveler was created in partnership with Contently.)

This is easier said than done. Hundreds of people work in the ad-sales departments of major publishers. To start, you need at minimum:

• A media kit
• A sales rep
• On-demand talent to produce creative
• An audience development manager to ensure ad performance
• Someone sharp enough to produce an ad-performance report

That being said, I think we’ll see more companies monetize their content marketing through ad sales or sponsored content. It just makes sense when you reach a certain maturity, particularly in B2B.

Look no further than Contently. With the analytics tools we use (Contently Analytics, Demandbase, LinkedIn, Google Analytics, Campaign Monitor), we can see that we reach a loyal, high-value audience of several hundred thousand marketers and media executives each month. We know that B2B publishers with a similar audience sell sponsored content packages that start at $10,000. We also know that our audience responds very well to partnerships, as long as they’re carefully selected and provide real value, which is why we’ve started running sponsored content campaigns with select partners. (Email us if you’re interested!)

At a level of maturity, it only makes sense. Especially since, as Beebe said, you can reinvest that revenue back into your content marketing and drive bigger returns for your organization.

How do I create a hero brand on a low budget?

—Philippe, Kinderminster

Let’s start by defining a hero brand since not everyone speaks marketing. I’m fond of this definition from Inc.: “The Hero is tough and courageous, overcomes tremendous obstacles and persists in difficult times. They are most fulfilled when they can rise to or overcome a challenge.”

I think that small companies with low budgets have a lot of advantages when it comes to creating a hero brand. You can lean into the underdog narrative. You can move quickly. And you can talk about your company in a casual and colloquial way without pissing off some brand manager halfway across the world.

The key is that your brand needs a mission. Yes, I put that in italics because I cannot stress it enough. Your brand needs a compelling perspective on the world and a mission to change how things are done. As I wrote last year:

When you wonder what your brand believes in, it’s easy to land on something bland and broad that would sound ridiculous if it came from a person. We believe in happiness. We believe in togetherness. We believe in innovation. These are not things you would tell someone at a dinner party. (So glad you believe in happiness, Bob. Now please pass the Chardonnay.)

If you focus on what the key people in your company believe, it increases your chances of coming up with interesting content. Your CEO doesn’t believe in the general concept of innovation; he believes that very specific things lead to success in your industry. Our co-founder Shane Snow doesn’t believe in content, but he does believe that brands will win if they invest in telling great stories instead of intrusive advertising, and that a combination of great technology and superb creative talent are the keys to actually accomplishing that mission. This belief informs our own content strategy, guiding us in the right direction.

At Contently, having a real opinion and a mission is the key to building our brand and capturing an audience—especially three years ago, when we were just a dozen people and a bunch of dogs. It was glorious, and it worked. This was how I felt when we first hit 100,000 readers:

I’ll never forget that day.

Is it kosher for a writer to accept payment from a client to write a piece and post it on a high authority website (LifeHacker, Forbes, Huffington Post, etc.) without disclosing that payment? I’ve been asked to do this quite a bit and it really irks me. I figure that if I’m posting PR copy under my own byline, it besmirches MY reputation as a writer (I’ve come into copywriting via journalism). Keen to find out if I’m just being naive and that everyone’s “doing this” or if there are some kind of ethical standards to which copywriters should abide. Trying to keep myself nice, here!

—Margaret, Blayney, Australia

Hell no! That’s less kosher than the last 100 pages of Lord of the Flies.

I get emails like this all the time. There are a bunch of shady PR and SEO firms out there that try to juice their clients’ website rankings. They have two tactics: They pay writers to embed links in their stories, or they pay writers to pass off PR copy as a legitimate article to editors. They’re dark agents, taking advantage of cash-strapped writers and paying them to poison the sites they work for.

I understand the temptation. But just don’t do it. If I found that a writer was doing that, I would never work with that person again.

If you have a question for next month’s column, please submit it here. You can also tweet me @JoeLazauskas or tag me in the comments section of this incredibly creepy Facebook Live video from Monopoly.

The post Ask a Content Strategist: How Do I Monetize My Content Marketing? appeared first on Contently.