Attribution has been a hot topic of conversation among marketers for a long time now. Gone are the days of simple one or two touch consumer journeys, where a last click model will suffice.
We’re all aware of the flaws related to measuring campaign performance on a last click basis, as users now rarely convert through one channel and in one session.
More so than ever, consumers are shopping around and hitting brands at multiple touch points throughout their journey before finding themselves in a position to convert.
On that basis, how can we say the final branded search click before conversion should take 100% of the credit? We absolutely can’t.
The Rise of Amazon
Amazon as an ad platform and eCommerce giant has also been dominating headlines of late, even receiving plenty of attention at our own advertising conference.
With over 50% of UK consumers making monthly purchases on Amazon, it is difficult to come across someone who doesn’t have an Amazon account, regardless of how frequently or infrequently they use it.
And with your payment details, delivery information and preferences stored, and the ability to have your order arrive at your door the following day at the click of just one button, it’s not hard to understand why.
Amazon Attribution: Everything You Need to Know
All things considered, then, you can understand how excited we were earlier this year when an email dropped into our inboxes introducing us to the new Amazon Attribution Beta. Two of our favourite topics merged!
The Amazon Attribution Beta helps advertisers understand the impact of their off-Amazon digital marketing efforts on key Amazon metrics. This means advertisers are able to more accurately report on cross-channel conversions and, therefore, better understand the impact of their marketing strategy as a whole.
For example, are people viewing and clicking your Facebook ads, browsing your website, but flicking over to Amazon to make their purchase? Based on the ease of Amazon shopping, this wouldn’t be an unlikely scenario, and I am personally guilty of this tactic.
Historically, this sale would not have been attributed to Facebook paid media at all, which seems unfair seeing as that sale may never have been made had it not been for the beautiful Facebook ads that introduced the consumer to your brand.
With the introduction of the Amazon Attribution tool, advertisers can now accurately track these sales and attribute fair credit where it’s due for certain cross-channel consumer journeys.
How Does Amazon Attribution Work?
Amazon Attribution works through click tags. Advertisers can build these tags within the Amazon Attribution interface, and then upload them to their off-Amazon campaigns.
Once this tracking is in place, Amazon can accurately report on purchases that originated from an off-Amazon paid click, but converted through Amazon.
What Will Amazon Attribution Do For My Business?
Amazon Attribution focuses on user behaviour prior to a sale on Amazon, and therefore moves away from a last click reporting model. This enables marketers to take a much more holistic approach to their marketing campaigns, enabling a more coherent strategy across channels.
As a result, advertisers can begin to understand the multiple touch points in a consumer’s journey to purchase, and how their various different paid media channels work in unison (rather than in isolation) and impact each other.
What’s The Catch?
There are a few small hurdles that we’ve come across through using this tool. The first being that it is still in beta. It’s an open beta in the US and Canada, which means it is available to everyone, but has limited availability in the UK and Germany. Advertisers must apply and be approved before they can implement this tool.
Secondly, this beta is only available to vendors, so sellers cannot currently utilise it.
And, finally, if advertisers are also running paid activity on Amazon (i.e. through AMS), there is currently no transparency surrounding whether advertisers are double paying for the clicks. For example, we can’t tell whether the user who converted on Amazon following a Google Ads click, also clicked on an Amazon Sponsored Product ad.
This means advertisers risk paying twice for the same user, and also risk double counting sales, as Amazon Attribution attributes the sale to Google, while AMS takes credit for the sale through the Sponsored Product ad.
Amazon Attribution In Practice
We recently implemented Amazon Attribution for one of our eCommerce clients, and have seen some great results. Amazon Attribution tracking uncovered previously non-attributed sales and revenue occurring on Amazon.
When factoring these sales into our Google and Facebook reporting, this improvement resulted in a 54% increase in revenue and a 48% decrease in CPA.
“The introduction of the Amazon Attribution tool to our paid media activity has been really insightful and provided us with a lot more transparency on how our different media channels influence each other.
“As a result, we have been able to understand cross-channel performance and results, and therefore make more informed decisions about budgets and their allocation by channel.”
Stephanie Dilworth, E-commerce Manager, Meyer Group
Read the full case study here >>>
Final Thoughts
As data-driven attribution tools become available across all major platforms (read about Facebook Attribution here...) the importance of moving away from last-click grows. As far as we're concerned, anyone still using a last-click model is missing out on a huge opportunity to improve the efficacy and performance of their advertising efforts.
If you'd like to talk to us about Amazon Attribution, how you can get involve and what impact it might have on your business, please get in touch with the team today >>>
