With more advertising channels comes more ways to reach potential consumers, but also more complicated analysis to determine if your investment is working. Effectively, your ability to attribute sales to specific marketing initiatives has evolved, but so too have the intricacies.

So where should savvy marketers start?

In marketing, attribution means the tracking of your marketing investment through each stage of path-to-purchase from creating awareness to driving traffic to close. Attribution allows you to understand which elements of your marketing mix were involved in the purchase decision process, and ideally, which were the most effective.

The role that attribution plays today and in the future is evolving rapidly as more sophisticated data becomes available and able to be interpreted and acted on more intelligently.

As an example, consumers now expect and respond better to messaging that is better customized to them personally, thus customization has become a key measurable characteristic with marketing attribution, an idea unimagined only a few years ago.

Others include…

• Implementing a streamlined form-fill process on all devices in conjunction with responsive design
• Consumer experience plays a significant role in the attribution process
• Attribution is more accurately measured when conversion is streamlined via e-mail or text message delivery

The better you’re able to understand your consumers and address their needs and wants (both from an information and product perspective), the more you’ll earn their trust.

I'm curious to know what are some tools and technologies that either your dealership or agency are using to "attribute" vehicle sales to specific marketing dollars?