Finding Solutions at the Attribution Accelerator Conference

The perfect attribution model, in my opinion, is a chimera.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t hold out hope for an industry multi-touch attribution model that, even if not perfect, is considered pretty good.  Last week executives from data and analytics companies, as well as advertisers and content providers met to exchange some pretty good ideas at the Attribution Accelerator Conference in New York City.  The conference strove to present attribution solutions for marketing measurement.  “Attribution is the hot spot,” stated Alice Sylvester, Partner, Sequent Partners.  “The development of a unified approach is taking place.  We are now focusing on data and data quality and have a more practical, more analytical orientation this year.”  But the path to a generally accepted attribution model may be further off than we think because of a fear of change in the industry which has relied on mixed media models for decades and the walled gardens of data that have increasingly siloed and segmented data applicability.  Some key takeaways from the Attribution Accelerator conference follow.