As digital marketing gets more sophisticated, the topic of attribution models has come up over and over in conversations with clients: every hotel wants to know what, where and how their guests are booking online. When you fully understand your online conversions, you can make better decisions when doing something as complex as allocating budgets, or as simple as going through a report. Attribution is one of the trickiest aspects of the industry: in a world where each and every user is interacting with your brand through a multitude of channels, it becomes very difficult to properly assign the correct value to each channel. So, most of the time, we end up using the simplest attribution model available in order to at least have something to base our conclusions on. We aim to clarify some of the concepts behind successful attribution models.

1. The Secret Ways Guests
Discover Your Hotel
ATTRIBUTION
MODELS

2. As digital marketing grows more
sophisticated, Attribution Models have
come up over and over again.

3. Attribution Models allow you to see:
hotel guests are booking online.
When
Where
How

4. When you understand your online
conversions, you can make better
decisions when allocating budgets or
simple going through a report.

5. However...

6. Attribution is tricky.
In a world where every user
interacts with brands on
dozens of channels, it
becomes very difficult to
assign the correct value to
each channel.

7. We'll try to clarity some of the concepts
behind successful attribution models, and
go through a few reasons some are better
than others.

8. WHAT IS AN
ATTRIBUTION
MODEL?

9. At the most basic level:
An attribution model is a set of
rules that determines how
credit for a conversion is
assigned to a touchpoint on a
conversion path.

10. TOUCHPOINT =
A point of contact or
interaction in the user
journey.
For example, Paid
Search becomes a
touchpoint when a user
clicks one of your ads.

11. THE MOST
POPULAR
ATTRIBUTION
MODEL IS...

12. This model attributes
to the last interaction before the conversion.
L A S T C L I C K M O D E L
100% OF CONVERSIONS

13. PROS CONS
It's the simplest
model, and gives
somewhat accurate
results.
It doesn't consider the
effect of assisted
conversions
It oversimplifies by
giving all importance
only to the last
interaction

14. ASSISTED
CONVERSION =
A user has perhaps seen your
listing on Trivago, visited your site
a few times, compared prices on
different channels, and a few days
later clicked one of your
remarketing ads to finally book.

15. Which stage of that interaction is
most important?
In a Last Click model, only the
remarketing ad counts.

16. HERE'S ANOTHER TYPE
OF ATTRIBUTION
MODEL...

17. This model attributes
to the first interaction the user has with you.
F I R S T
I N T E R A C T I O N M O D E L
100% OF CONVERSIONS

18. First Interaction models only
consider the channel that brought
the user into the funnel.
Any other interactions that might
have assisted in the booking get no
credit.

19. Linear
Time Decay
Position Based
Last Non-Direct Click
Last AdWords click
Personalized
M O D E L S B E T W E E N T H E S E
E X T R E M E S
Do some research on
each model to find
which most accurately
reflects the reality of
the journey your
hotel's guests take to
book.

20. UNDERSTANDING THE USER
JOURNEY ISN'T THE PURPOSE
OF AN ATTRIBUTION MODEL.
Attribution models only attribute
conversion value based on a set of rules.
Instead, try to select a model that reflects
the reality of the user journey.

21. MULTI-CHANNEL
ATTRIBUTION:
THE USER JOURNEY
RABBIT HOLE

22. THE USER JOURNEY IS MORE
THAN WHAT THEY DO ON YOUR
WEBSITE.
Think of the user journey as a quest.
For example, a quest to find the perfect hotel!

23. Here's a sample user journey:

24. Each step involves a different channel:

25. The complexity and survival rate can
feel like Game of Thrones.
And, like Game of Thrones, anyone can
'drop off' from the funnel at any
minute...

26. It can feel like a desperate quest to
survive the time and cognitive distance
required to get from “I want a vacation”
to “I’m ready to book.”
So it’s important to try to understand
the nuances involved, and how to
interpret them.

27. DISCOVERING
YOUR HOTEL'S
USER JOURNEY

28. YOU MAY HAVE SOME
QUESTIONS.

29. How do you find out which
channels are involved in your
user journey?
How long is your user journey?

30. THE ANSWER IS IN
YOUR GOOGLE
ANALYTICS ACCOUNT.

31. Click on "Multi-Channel
Funnels" in your
Analytics' left hand
menu.

32. In the Overview section, you'll be able to see how
many conversions involved more than 1 channel*
and how they overlap:
*The data here is based on which attribution model you have set for
your account, so data may be skewed

33. The Path Length report shows you how many
interactions users had with different channels
before converting:

34. Finally, the Top Conversion Paths report shows
the most common channel combinations that
resulted in a booking.

35. TOP CONVERSION PATHS
ARE A GOOD WAY TO
GAUGE IF YOUR
STRATEGY FOR
CHANNEL MANAGEMENT
WORKS FOR YOUR HOTEL.

36. IN CONCLUSION...
USER JOURNEYS
ARE COMPLICATED.

37. However, taking the time
to understand attribution
models opens a window to
your guests' worldviews.
The more you understand
them, the better you can
serve them.

38. AT NET AFFINITY, WE'RE EXPERTS IN HOTEL
TECHNOLOGY AND CONVERSION RATE GROWTH FOR
HOTELS. IF YOU'VE GOT QUESTIONS, EMAIL US AT
SALES@NETAFFINITY.COM
THANK YOU!