Attribution

Attribution may refer to:

See also

Attribution (marketing)

In marketing, Attribution is the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events” or "touchpoints") that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then assigning a value to each of these events. Marketing attribution provides a level of understanding of what combination of events in what particular order influence individuals to engage in a desired behavior, typically referred to as a conversion.

History

The roots of marketing attribution can be traced to Attribution Theory, developed by Fritz Heider. By most accounts, the current application of attribution theory in marketing was spurred by the transition of advertising spending from traditional, offline ads to digital media and the expansion of data available through digital channels such as paid and organic search, display, and email marketing.

Concept

The purpose of marketing attribution is to quantify the influence each advertising impression has on a consumer’s decision to make a purchase decision, or convert. Visibility into what influences the audience, when and to what extent, allows marketers to optimize media spend for conversions and compare the value of different marketing channels, including paid and organic search, email, affiliate marketing, display ads, social media and more. Understanding the entire conversion path across the whole marketing mix eliminates the accuracy challenge of analyzing data from siloed channels. Typically, attribution data is used by marketers to plan future ad campaigns by analyzing which media placements (ads) were the most cost-effective as determined by metrics such as effective cost per action (eCPA).

Attribution (psychology)

In social psychology, attribution is the process by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events. Attribution theory is the study of models to explain those processes. Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early part of the 20th century, subsequently developed by others such as Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner.

Background

Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider is often described as the "father of attribution theory", during the early years of the 20th century.

In his 1920's dissertation Heider addressed the problem of phenomenology: why perceivers attribute the properties such as color to perceived objects, when those properties are mental constructs? Heider's answer that perceivers attribute that which they "directly" sense – vibrations in the air for instance – to an object they construe as causing those sense data. "Perceivers faced with sensory data thus see the perceptual object as 'out there', because they attribute the sensory data to their underlying causes in the world."