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Daniel Murray
Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.
Jay Schwedelson
This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back. It's Bathroom Break. This is Jay Schwedelson from Do this, not that here with the man, the myth, the legend, Daniel Murray. So before we get into this topic of the day, which sneak peek, its attribution is total garbage. Daniel, I have a question for you. In your newsletter, at the bottom of your newsletter, you always put in stuff like, I am going to this new restaurant or this is my new favorite song. I always have a hard time finding this stuff. How do you always find, like, the cool new restaurant to go to, the cool new thing to do? Are you just very cool or somebody feeding you all this stuff?
Daniel Murray
First of all, I'm not very cool. It just most of the stuff sometimes are just like, repeat things that I do all the time. But I did, I. I did feel cool the other day when I went to Vinnie's Cafe. That was like, I did feel cool, like, because that was like, tick tock fame. And then I was like, I'm eating where the Tick Tockers are. And I felt really, really cool doing that. But usually I do. We just, like, me and Ari will pick a cuisine, then we'll look at, like, ratings of like, which would be the best. And then we'll, like, try something new if it sucks and never makes the list on the bottom of the newsletter.
Jay Schwedelson
So have you ever put something in your newsletter because you have a big newsletter and then you go there or whatever, or they hit you up and say, hey, thanks so much. Because you put us in the newsletter, we want to give you, like, free smoothies for life. Have you ever gotten, like, anything out?
Daniel Murray
I'm not cool like that, but I did yesterday. Like, I have, like, the question, like, in my opening welcome email that says, like, what's your favorite restaurant? And the person was in Miami and he messaged me back, like, I can get you this, like, reservation at, like, this top Miami restaurant if you want. And I was like, oh, finally, like, I get something.
Jay Schwedelson
You're sleeping on this, man. This could be great. I'll tell you what's not great though. It's attribution measurement. So many people, it's garbage. So Daniel, let's get into it. First, what is attribution? What's going on? Why do we, what, what is your take?
Daniel Murray
I just think that the problem with attribution is marketers should track things. And I totally believe in tracking things. But what they do is they treat attribution like it's the map. It's the only thing that they should follow. And really what it is is just kind of like a compass. It's supposed to guide you in certain directions, but it shouldn't be your like, end all, be all. And too many marketers treated like that and, and they don't look beyond their dashboards and they're losing sight of so many things that are happening around, like dark social, like where people are actually coming from. So that's the first point we're going to make. But what is your thoughts before we go into like, well, how to fix like attribution problem?
Jay Schwedelson
You know, I think if you have a product that's like a phone case, very inexpensive, low cost, then attribution can real meaning. Oh, here's my Instagram ad I ran. We got this many customers from it. It's because I ran this ad because that's like a $15 thing. If you are selling, you know, a $2,000 masterclass, if you're selling a SaaS product that's $10,000 a year subscription, whatever consumer B2B, you are not getting that new customer because of that last email that you sent because of that LinkedIn ad that you ran. What's going on, in my opinion is surround sound. And that's how you have to think about it. It is all of these touch points that you're doing and then when that person or company is in market for the thing that you sell, you're going to be top of mind. And it's not because you press send on that last email when, when you attribute revenue to that last touch. That is when you go down a rabbit hole and you waste money in all of your marketing.
Daniel Murray
I also think that like the first thing you got to take a step back and say, like, how long is the average sales cycle of when someone first sees an ad to when they buy? Because for example, when iOS changed their 28 window to 7 day window, a lot of people's buying windows were 14, 28, 30, whatever. And people thought oh, now we're not seeing sales anymore. Everything's broken. You got to look beyond and say, okay, if someone sees an ad, they usually buy 28 days later or 30 days later or six months later. So that one ad is. That's going to happen in the future. So you got to account for that's how long it's going to be out. And a lot of people think, okay, Facebook attribution is everything. Like, if they don't click, if I spend 100, I'm going to get this back. But really, it's not happening for a longer window because the sales cycle, especially in B2B, where the sales cycles are could be 6 months, 8 months, 12 months. It's not going to. That first Facebook ad could have been the one that sparked their initial interest, but then you did 80 extra activities that kept them in the loop and kept them top of mind as you were going along.
Jay Schwedelson
Yeah. And I think that the biggest takeaway from all this is that you only have so many marketing dollars that you can spend. And how do you decide where you're spending the marketing dollars to? Generally speaking, you're looking at, okay, we did this program, it generated this. Let's do more of that. And that's to operating in a vacuum. Right. You need to have a holistic view on your marketing. It needs to be consistent. It needs to be everywhere. I'll give you an example. For my own company, for my agency that we run, we used to have a website that had all this stuff on it. Let's drive people to the website. Drive people to the website, have them look at everything, whatever. And then we realized the way that we really get business is by having calls. The more calls that we have, the more business that we got. And so what we did, which is probably the worst idea of all time, is we stripped our website. Our website for our agency now is one page. And the only thing you could do, you can't click anywhere. All you could do is book a call. That's it. And then we put out content stuff everywhere else, trying to drive people to just book calls with us and whatnot. Because it's this idea of just by, you know, shoveling out all this garbage and you think that you're going to be able to assign value to that one thing that you did to me, it's complete nonsense.
Daniel Murray
I'll give you two things that I've seen. Like, for my, my agency, what I do is I have, where did you hear about us? And you'll be surprised where people have heard Me on the podcast LinkedIn from a referral like it. I could have thought it came straight from my website. If I, if I didn't have like, if someone just searched me or Google did it, if I didn't have that feel. That's one thing to. Number two is like, what. What I've noticed when I used to run marketing ops, like the best thing to do most attribution fights are an alignment problem. Like, you need to go align what the meaning of influences with sales, with finance in the same room. Like, you can't operate in this vacuum of like, my dashboard is my dashboard and sales dashboards, their dashboard and finance dashboard. You need to come together and say like, we're working as a team. Revenue is a team sport. This is if like pipeline, we know that there's multiple influences. Like STR is going to make a call and we're going to do marketing. And it could be both at an attribute but at the end day, this is have clear definitions of that. That's what I've seen. Like, avoid a lot of problems and make sales, marketing and finance work together. When you just get in a room and say, let's align on the rules of what attribution is. And then you have a. We. What we used to do is have a weekly meeting and go over like there used to be like five to 10 attribution problems that could come. And we'll look at the rules like, oh, here's the rules. Like this attributed here, here's. And there was no fights of attribution because we got into the room together. There's alignment, we had alignment. Most of it is alignment problems I've seen in companies where like, we brought in this lead. No, we brought in this lead. And then you're fighting over attribution instead of fighting over what the goal is, is getting revenue for the business.
Jay Schwedelson
I think that's super valuable. And I'll tell you the other piece is that the most successful companies on the planet that I work with doesn't matter if they're B2B, B2C. Whatever they are, are, are those that have their marketing leadership, their sales leadership sit in on sales calls. They don't have to do the calls, but they have to sit in on those calls. They have to listen to those calls. They have to understand what they. Why people are deciding to buy from their company. And you can't just be looking at spreadsheets and dashboards and metrics, whatever. You have to take the time to intentionally be on these calls ongoing. And the biggest Best companies, their executives do this. And I think it's. If you're not doing that, I think that is a fail for your business.
Daniel Murray
One last point I'll make is the sales cars. That's one thing that now that AI is available, you could do so much more. Like, there's tools that have AI, but you can also feed it to AI. Like, you should have that. Where? What? Where did you hear about this question? Somewhere. It should also be in the sales process. Like, hey, I just want to ask. So you can get these questions and then you can analyze the data and be like, of all these sales calls here, this is the most common place. And then you can. It helps your marketing at the end of the day when they say, oh, I actually heard you guys on a podcast. Oh, podcasts actually work. Oh, I heard you from a friend or I heard you from. So you gathering data from podcasts from form, from all these different sources. And I think a lot of people go off of, like, straight numbers, but qualitative stuff is so much. When in the attribution world is like, you need to track that as religiously as you're tracking the numbers that are coming in and out.
Jay Schwedelson
Totally agree. All right, so back to the original questions here. So now when you're. When you're out there looking for these restaurants, what do you go on? Do you go on Open Table? Are you in some sort of, like, Instagram group? Are you in, like, a Reddit about new restaurants? Like, I need to understand how the hell are you finding these places.
Daniel Murray
My two go to places are Reddit and I'll. Or I'll type in on TikTok, like, best restaurants in an area and see, scroll through. And then what I'll do is like, look if this person's local or not local, because locals usually have the better wrecks. And then I'll go on Google and say, like, hey, like, what is the star rating of this thing? And then look at, like, the food options, like, the menu to see if, like, we would like the menu. Because sometimes the best restaurants are these crazy menu items that we would never eat. So. And we're not picky eaters. But some things are, like, out there. Like, you, I would not want to. Like crazy animals and stuff that you would not want to touch. So how do you pick you. Are you just consistent with your restaurants?
Jay Schwedelson
Oh, I don't like going anywhere. So I stay home and I go on Uber Eats. I order from the same five place. I'm a big dummy. So, yeah, we're wild all right, well, once again, we crushed another episode, so attribution is garbage, and hopefully this episode isn't. Go follow the Marketing Millennials and we'll smell you later. Daniel. Come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for Marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.
Daniel Murray
Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Market Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.
Jay Schwedelson
Later.
Episode Summary: "Attribution is a Lie | Bathroom Break #60 🚽"
Podcast Information:
In this special episode of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray teams up with Jay Schwedelson from the "Do This, Not That" podcast and SubjectLine.com to present the Bathroom Break series. Aimed at providing quick, actionable marketing tips, this collaboration delves into the intricacies of marketing strategies during the short span of a bathroom break. Despite the lighthearted premise, the conversation quickly transitions into a deeply analytical discussion on the pitfalls of traditional marketing attribution models.
Daniel Murray kicks off the conversation by critiquing the conventional approach to attribution in marketing. He emphasizes that while tracking is essential, many marketers mistakenly treat attribution as an infallible map rather than a directional compass. According to Daniel, this narrow focus leads to a disregard for other critical factors influencing consumer behavior.
“I think that like the first thing you got to take a step back and say, how long is the average sales cycle of when someone first sees an ad to when they buy?” — Daniel Murray [03:22]
Jay Schwedelson echoes this sentiment, highlighting how attribution can be misleading, especially for products with longer sales cycles like B2B SaaS solutions. He argues that attributing sales to the last touchpoint oversimplifies the consumer journey, disregarding the myriad of interactions that contribute to a purchase decision.
“It's not because you press send on that last email when you attribute revenue to that last touch.” — Jay Schwedelson [04:23]
Both hosts delve deeper into the shortcomings of last-touch attribution models. They discuss how this approach fails to account for multiple touchpoints that influence a customer's decision over extended periods. Daniel cites the change in iOS tracking windows from 28 days to 7 days as an example of how rigid attribution models can disrupt the perceived effectiveness of marketing efforts.
“A lot of people think, okay, Facebook attribution is everything. Like, if they don't click, if I spend 100, I'm going to get this back.” — Daniel Murray [03:22]
Jay adds that for high-value products with longer consideration phases, this narrow attribution can lead to misallocation of marketing budgets, as the true value of initial touchpoints is overlooked.
Transitioning from the problems, the discussion shifts to solutions. Daniel advocates for a more holistic approach, where attribution serves merely as a guide rather than the definitive measure of success. He suggests that marketers should consider the entire customer journey, including "dark social" channels that are often invisible in standard analytics tools.
“Attribution is just kind of like a compass. It's supposed to guide you in certain directions, but it shouldn't be your end-all, be-all.” — Daniel Murray [02:32]
Jay complements this by sharing his experience of restructuring his agency’s marketing strategy. By simplifying their online presence to a single call-to-action and focusing on generating calls rather than website traffic, Jay illustrates the importance of aligning marketing activities with tangible business outcomes.
“We stripped our website. Our website for our agency now is one page. … All you could do is book a call. … By shoveling out all this garbage and you think that you're going to be able to assign value to that one thing that you did to me, it's complete nonsense.” — Jay Schwedelson [05:40]
A pivotal point in the conversation revolves around the necessity of aligning marketing with sales and finance departments to mitigate attribution conflicts. Daniel emphasizes that revenue generation is a team effort and that disparate dashboards across departments often lead to misinterpretations and disputes over attribution.
“Most of it is alignment problems ... Revenue is a team sport.” — Daniel Murray [08:44]
He recounts his experience in marketing operations, where regular cross-departmental meetings ensured that everyone was on the same page regarding attribution rules and revenue goals. This collaborative approach prevented frequent attribution disputes and fostered a unified strategy towards revenue growth.
Moving towards actionable strategies, Daniel highlights the importance of integrating qualitative data into attribution models. He suggests that understanding the "why" behind customer decisions is as crucial as the numerical data captured through traditional attribution methods.
“Qualitative stuff is so much ... you need to track that as religiously as you're tracking the numbers that are coming in and out.” — Daniel Murray [10:21]
Furthermore, he points out the potential of AI in enhancing attribution accuracy. By feeding comprehensive data into AI tools, marketers can uncover deeper insights into customer behaviors and the effectiveness of various touchpoints over extended periods.
Jay shares a practical example from his own agency where simplifying the marketing funnel led to increased business efficiency. By focusing solely on generating calls rather than directing traffic to a multi-page website, his team was able to better track and convert leads, demonstrating the effectiveness of streamlined marketing efforts aligned with business objectives.
Daniel adds that in his agency, asking clients how they heard about them revealed unexpected sources of leads, such as podcasts and referrals. This underscores the importance of broadening attribution tracking beyond conventional channels to include diverse and sometimes overlooked sources.
“What I've seen is alignment ... revenue is a team sport.” — Daniel Murray [08:44]
Rethink Attribution Models: Treat attribution as a guiding tool rather than a definitive measure. Recognize the limitations of last-touch models, especially for products with longer sales cycles.
Adopt a Holistic Approach: Integrate multiple touchpoints and consider both quantitative and qualitative data to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer journeys.
Foster Cross-Departmental Alignment: Ensure that marketing, sales, and finance teams collaborate closely to define and agree upon attribution rules and revenue goals, preventing internal conflicts.
Leverage Technology and Data: Utilize AI and advanced analytics to enhance attribution accuracy and uncover deeper insights into marketing effectiveness.
Simplify and Align Marketing Efforts: Focus on marketing activities that directly contribute to business outcomes, such as generating calls or bookings, rather than dispersing efforts across multiple channels without clear attribution.
In this episode of The Marketing Millennials, Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson provide a compelling critique of traditional marketing attribution models, advocating for a more nuanced and collaborative approach. By emphasizing the importance of holistic metrics, cross-departmental alignment, and the integration of qualitative data, they offer valuable insights for marketers striving to optimize their strategies in an increasingly complex landscape.
For more actionable marketing insights and to join the conversation, follow The Marketing Millennials on LinkedIn and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and share it with fellow marketers seeking to refine their attribution strategies.