What is multi-channel attribution?


Multi-channel attribution helps businesses determine which channels are generating the most revenue over a long period of time. 

B2C businesses promote their products on multiple channels: email, SMS, social media, search ads, etc. More often than not, people interact with multiple channels before they make a decision to buy—and it’s not easy to pin down which channels are responsible for that decision. Odds are, multiple channels—hence “multi-channel”—deserve some credit for overall revenue over a certain period of time.

Through Klaviyo, businesses can use multi-channel attribution to track and assign credit to all marketing channels that contribute to a conversion outside of Klaviyo’s owned channels (email and SMS). These channels may include ads, physical media, and activity from other third-party marketing platforms.

Multi-channel attribution, in this context, reports on metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC), return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend (ROAS), and sources of site traffic.

The benefits of multi-channel attribution

Multi-channel attribution may be more complex than single-touch attribution, but the revenue potential far outweighs the effort. With multi-touch channel attribution, you can expect:

  • Full customer lifecycle insights: Multi-channel attribution can complement marketing funnel analysis by adding more detail to insights about the customer journey. When you operate with full knowledge of which channels are contributing the most revenue, you can better prioritize which stages of the funnel need the most attention.
  • More efficient marketing spend: When you understand which channels are contributing the most to revenue—and which channels are assisting in important ways—you can allocate budget to where it’s going to do the most work.
  • The ability to experiment: Multi-channel attribution can create some certainty around experimental channels. When you want to launch a campaign on a new channel, multi-touch attribution can let you know whether you should keep going or it’s time to pull the plug.  

Multi-channel attribution vs. multi-touch attribution

Multi-channel attribution tracks the overall revenue impact of different marketing channels, while multi-touch attribution analyzes the customer interactions within those channels and assigns fractional credit to them.

For example, a $100 order may be attributed to 4 campaign messages. If a business is using a linear multi-touch attribution model, a $25 attribution would go to each of the 4 messages sent in the past week. Multi-channel attribution, by contrast, would focus on comparing  different channels across multiple campaigns to determine which ones generated the most revenue and how.

Multi-channel attribution and multi-touch attribution work together. When you use both, you can better understand the combined effect of various channels and their specific interactions, then optimize your campaigns across the entire customer journey.

How to implement multi-channel attribution

  1. Define clear attribution goals. Ask yourself what success looks like for your business. You obviously want to increase revenue, but how? You might want to know which of your marketing channels are the most efficient; in that case, set your sights on improving ROI and ROAS. Or maybe you have a very specific goal to lower your CAC; in that case, determine which goals your multi-channel attribution should fulfill, so you’re comparing channels with intention. 
  2. Gather and integrate data. Choose an attribution solution  that centralizes all the interaction data you have about your customers. You’ll need all your analytics from every channel in one place so that your multi-channel attribution model includes all the channels you use to promote your products. 
  3. Regular analysis and optimization. Over longer periods of time—monthly, quarterly, yearly—review your multi-channel attribution data to identify high-performing channels. If you’re seeing the most ROI from email, for example, that’s your cue to invest in ways to squeeze out more from the channel, either through more granular segmentation or strategically increasing sends. You may also find out that you’ve been spending too much on channels that don’t yield results—that’s your cue to decrease investments in those channels, or cut them altogether.

Klaviyo has helped 157,000 businesses create personalized customer journeys with multi-touch attribution data. Sign up for Klaviyo and get started today.