Marketing is a key aspect of running a successful online retail business, and multi-channel attribution may help retailers improve their strategies to bring in visitors, get them to the point of sale and convert online window shoppers to paying customers. Multi-channel attribution can be used to evaluate data collected from retail management software to help business owners gain insight into how their customers are coming to their online stores.

"At its core, multi-channel attribution involves gaining a 'true' understanding of what activity actually contributed to a customer action – usually the sale or product order," Rob Stagno, president of marketing company Paradysz, told BizReport. "In the increasingly complex world if digital marketing, lines between channels (i.e. display and search) can easily become blurred."

Essentially, this method of gathering information tracks more than just how visitors arrive at an online store, but also every click they made on the site from the moment they got there to when they added products to their shopping carts. This allows retailers to see how customers navigate their site. Business Standard stated that multi-channel attribution involves looking at each click and attributing the value it had in relation to the rest, rather than assuming the first or last click was the most important move. Using this system, the source noted that brands could improve their overall return on investment in online ads by as much as 10 percent.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, April 18th, 2014 at 10:08 am .