Author: Franz Malten Buemann

As a marketer, you know how many avenues there are for your prospects and customers to interact with you throughout the buyer’s journey. These avenues refer to channels (e.g. PPC, your website, email campaigns, social media) and touchpoints (e.g. specific ads, blog posts, social media posts, emails). Marketing attribution modeling can help you determine the impact of all of those marketing efforts.

Attribution Modeling
In this blog post, we’ll talk about what attribution modeling is, why it’s important, the different types of attribution modeling, and some tools to help with the process. Let’s get started.
What’s the purpose of attribution modeling?
By assigning credit to your marketing channels and touchpoints, you can increase your chances of converting more prospects by 1) identifying areas of the buyer’s journey that you can improve, 2) determining the ROI for each channel or touchpoint, 3) surfacing the most effective ways to spend your marketing budget, and 4) tailoring your marketing campaigns and content to your unique personas.
Types of Attribution Modeling
There are a handful of common types of attribution modeling. Although all attribution models look at the channels and touchpoints involved in a customer’s decision to convert, each of them weighs those channels and touchpoints differently.
1. Multi-Touch Attribution Modeling
Multi-touch attribution modeling is powerful because it takes into account every channel and touchpoint that a customer interacted with throughout the buyer’s journey, up until they decided to convert. It tells you which of those channels and touchpoints were most influential as well as provides insight into how they worked together to influence a customer.
2. Cross-Channel Attribution Modeling
Cross-channel attribution modeling is often used interchangeably with multi-touch attribution. However, their definitions differ slightly. Cross-channel attribution designates value to each marketing channel (such as paid, organic, or social media) but doesn’t look at the specific touchpoints within those channels the way that multi-touch attribution does.
3. Linear Attribution Modeling
Linear attribution modeling is a type of multi-touch attribution that gives equal credit to all channels and touchpoints that a customer interacted with throughout the buyer’s journey.
4. First-Touch Attribution Modeling
First touch attribution modeling gives all the credit for the conversion to the first channel or touchpoint that was interacted with by the customer.
5. Last-Touch Attribution Modeling
Last-touch attribution modeling is the opposite of first-touch attribution modeling — it gives all the credit to the last touchpoint a lead interacted with before converting.
6. Time-Decay Attribution Modeling
Time-decay attribution modeling gives credit to all of the touchpoints that contributed to a conversion and also considers the time that each touchpoint occurred — the touchpoints that happened closest to the time of conversion are weighted most heavily.
7. U-Shaped Attribution Modeling
U-shaped modeling, also known as position-based attribution modeling, splits the credit for a conversion between the first and last touchpoints.
8. W-Shaped Attribution Modeling
W-shaped attribution modeling gives the most credit to the first touchpoint, last touchpoint, and mid-funnel touchpoint before a conversion — it then gives equal credit to the rest of the touchpoints.
Attribution Modeling Tools
There are a number of tools that have the ability to help with marketing attribution modeling — here are three options to help you get started.
1. CallRail

CallRail is a call tracking and marketing analytics platform. The tool has a number of reports so you can analyze your call data in different ways — one of these is attribution modeling, a report that lives within their cost-per-lead reporting category.
Why do you need attribution modeling for your calls? It offers an understanding of every marketing touchpoint that led to a phone conversation with a prospect. It tells you which sources are leading to the greatest number of phone calls, and therefore leads who are most likely to convert into paying customers.
Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with CallRail.
2. Wicked Reports

Wicked Reports is multi-channel attribution software for ecommerce marketers. The tool calculates ROI and LTV for every channel, campaign, and ad so you can understand the impact of each marketing touchpoint. Wicked Reports maps your attribution models to your unique campaign goals — this way, you can determine the impact of your campaigns throughout the buyer’s journey.
The tool provides in-depth and accurate data across all of your business platforms — including Google, CRMs like HubSpot, marketing software, ecommerce platforms, and Facebook — so you can combine and access your attribution data with ease.
Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with Wicked Reports.
3. Attribution

Attribution is an enterprise multi-touch attribution tool that gives you a clear understanding of the impact of each of your marketing touchpoints. It automates data collection using its many integrations with ad software, CRM platforms, marketing tools, and more. It also accounts for your offline marketing touchpoints as well as your budget.
The process of attribution modeling is also automated for you and you can segment your attribution results and reports by channel, marketing campaign, touchpoint, and more.
Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with Attribution.
Grow Better With Attribution Modeling
Attribution modeling allows you to hone in on the buyer’s journey and understand which parts of it are working best for your customers and what needs improvement. It also offers insight into how your marketing channels and touchpoints are working together to convert your target audience.
Determine which models will provide the information you care most about, identify the right tool for you, and get started with attribution modeling.

Ever left something perfectly fine and came back to a total disaster? Any pet owner will probably say, “yes.”
At work, the same can happen when collaborating on a shared document. It’s usually an accidental keyboard stroke that does it. Unless it’s done by your cat, in which case, it’s not accidental – it’s definitely sabotage.
While a mistake like this is understandable, it can be frustrating and time-consuming to fix. When working on shared Excel sheets, you can prevent these mishaps altogether by locking cells and protecting your worksheets.

Whether you’re working on an upcoming report or planning out next quarter’s budget, learn how to prevent anyone from changing or deleting important information on an Excel document.
Can you lock cells in Excel?
Yes, you can lock cells on Excel by following a few simple steps. When you lock a cell in Excel, you restrict users from making changes to your sheets. It’s particularly helpful when working on a project that involves multiple team members.
For instance, let’s say you’re the marketing director and you’ve asked each channel lead (email, website, social) to report their quarterly numbers for an upcoming meeting.
You wouldn’t want someone accidentally deleting important information, or changing formulas or conditional formatting before consulting with key stakeholders. This process ensures that only pre-approved users can edit the cell, which will save you a headache in the future.
Another method is locking your formula cells so that the numbers populate correctly. Jump to that section here.
How to Lock Cells in Excel

1. Select the cell(s) you want to lock.

2. Click on the “Home” tab of your Excel sheet.
3. Click on “Format,” located on the right side of the screen.

4. Scroll down and click on “Lock Cell.”

Once you complete these steps, your cells will be locked but can still be edited. To ensure the cells aren’t editable, you’ll also have to protect your worksheet. Find those steps in the next section.
How To Protect a Worksheet in Excel
1. Once you’ve locked your cells, click on the “Review” tab.

2. Click on “Protect Sheet.”

3. Select which permissions you’d like to allow on the sheet, then click “OK.” You can also add a password for additional protection.

Note: If you don’t add a password, any user can click “Unprotect Sheet” to make changes to the sheet. When you add a password, only those with the code can do so.
4. Confirm that your cells are locked by looking for the “Unprotect Sheet” icon in the toolbar.

You can also double-check that your worksheet is protected by attempting to write something in the locked cells. You should get this alert.

How to Protect Specific Cells in Excel (& Get a Shortcut to Lock Cells)
1. Select the cells you want to lock then press Ctrl+Shift+F (Windows) or Ctrl + 1 (Mac) to open up the “Format Cells” box. Then, click on the “Protection” tab.

2. Select the “Locked” box and click “OK” on the bottom right to finish.
These simple steps offer both a shortcut to locking cells in bulk and a way to protect specific cells in Excel.
How to Protect Formulas in Excel
A green triangle indicates an error in your cell’s formula. The error sign will show up if your formula is unprotected.

Any unauthorized or accidental changes to a formula can alter the integrity of the data reported in the sheet. As such, it’s important to always lock your formulas to prevent mistakes.
Here’s how you protect your formulas in Excel:
1. Click on the cell with the green triangle and look for the yellow triangle warning sign.
2. Click on the warning sign and select “Lock Cell.”

3. You must then protect your worksheet by clicking on “Protect Sheet” under the “Review” tab.

Another way to protect your formulas is by locking each formula cell individually as you build your worksheet (as outlined here) and protecting your sheet once all formulas have been locked.
Whether you’re the person fixing the mistake or the one who made it, following these steps will ensure it never happens again. And your cat will have to find something else to sabotage.

In midsize to large companies, it’s standard to have business intelligence (BI) analysts generate reports on behalf of employees.
Having a designated team is great, as it signifies you have the resources to process large volumes of data. However, it can be a roadblock to decision-making.

Generating a report can take several days and if your team is already receiving many requests, it can take their focus away from higher priority tasks.
This is where ad hoc analysis comes in handy – you can run your own queries as you need them.
Discover the benefits of generating your own reports and the tools that will help you do it.
Non-technical users – who may be unfamiliar with structured query language (SQL) – can use it to answer questions that require immediate answers.
With the ad hoc model, everyone is empowered to dig into the data and find exactly what they’re looking for, without having to go through someone else. Why is this helpful? It:

Saves time – When everyone is able to run their own analysis, they don’t have to wait days or weeks for IT to get to it. It also allows your IT team to focus on top priorities without being distracted by one-off tasks.

Speeds up the decision-making process – This also enables your team to make decisions quickly, as they can access data to support their decisions.

Empowers your team – Democratizing access to data can help your team feel more invested in your projects and be equipped to share insights.

One potential downside of using ad hoc analysis is the risk of information silos, where team members are not sharing insights and making unilateral decisions.
When using the ad hoc model, it’s important to only focus on answering a specific question. You also want to use it for micro-level decisions, not large scale. Furthermore, share your insights with your team to get everyone on the same page.
Ad Hoc Example
You typically run ad hoc analysis as a response to an event.
For instance, let’s say your marketing team is wondering which channels to invest in for 2021. You could run a report to identify the channels that generate the most and least sales-qualified leads. You could also run a secondary report to identify where potential leads may be dropping off.
Ad hoc analysis is great when you want to:

Validate a theory.
Highlight specific data for an upcoming meeting.
Make a decision quickly regarding an ongoing project.

Ad Hoc Reports
What is ad hoc reporting?
Ad hoc reporting is a one-time report that doesn’t require waiting for the standard analysis cycle. Typically, a report requires large volumes of data and follows specific templates to share with a large audience. With ad hoc reporting, you only pull a small segment of data for you or a small pool of users.
Wondering what’s the difference between ad hoc reporting and analysis? The former pulls the right data for the question you want to answer while the latter focuses on analyzing it for patterns, trends, and insights.
Standard (Canned) Reports vs. Ad Hoc Reports
Standard reports have limited customization options available, as they are usually created for large audiences and sent out on a regular schedule. They are created, managed, and distributed by technical IT users, with the end-user only being able to manipulate select data points.
Ad hoc reports, on the other hand, are much more flexible. Non-technical users can dig through data, pull out what they want and how they want to display it whenever they need it.
In addition, ad hoc reports can be more visual than standard reports, which tend to follow set templates for easy distribution.
Ad Hoc Reporting Tools
When searching for a business intelligence (BI) reporting tool, here are some key features you’ll want to look for:

Data visualization
Easy sharing options
Access to multiple data sources
Integrations

Here are some top ad hoc analysis and reporting tools available online today.
1. Grow

Grow is a business intelligence tool that centralizes your data and offers no-code solutions. No need to host your marketing data on one platform and your financial data on another. Grow’s powerful integration software removes the need for third-party data warehouses.
You can easily integrate your data from multiple sources, including:

CRMs like HubSpot
Social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn
Ecommerce sites like Shopify
Payment processors like Square and Stripe
Ad platforms like AdRoll and Google Ads
Financial institutions like Chase and Bank of America

The user-friendly dashboard and visualization capabilities, you can quickly get answers to your most pressing questions. For pricing information, contact the company.
2. Easy Insight

Easy Insight is another code-free business intelligence tool that enables non-technical users to run ad hoc reports in a few simple steps.
Whenever you need it, you can create custom reports using a range of filters and visualize them through tables, charts, and a host of other visualization tools.
The platform is highly customizable, allowing you to create your own data sources, import data from other databases, and combine your data for unified reporting. It also integrates with HubSpot to help you leverage your insights to make decisions.
Easy Insight offers six plans for small to large companies. Pricing ranges from $29/month to $1499/month.
3. Wicked Reports

If your team is currently relying on several platforms to gather and analyze data, then consider Wicked Reports. This tool caters specifically to marketers looking to step up their data analytics game.
Wicked Reports helps teams track return on investment (ROI) on various campaigns and improve their customer lifetime value. With the easy-to-use dashboard, any user can run ad hoc reports to assess performance against goals and make quick decisions.
The best part? You don’t need IT to set it up or use it. The platform is accessible to non-technical users who want clean and accurate data.
Starting at $597/month, Wicked Reports is ideal for scaling businesses looking for a reliable analytics tool.
With ad hoc analysis, you can empower your team to easily access the data they need most, freeing up your IT staff in the process.

Email marketing is an effective and engaging communication channel that offers numerous ways to give a boost to your business.

 

 

According to Statista, by the end of 2021, 73% of eCommerce sales will take place on a mobile device. This is a huge boost for eCommerce retailers to put more effort into improving the mobile shopping experience. While (even with the ongoing pandemic) eCommerce is still on a roll, it’s worth diving deeper into mCommerce. 

 

Let’s start with the definition

 

The term “Mobile Commerce” refers to a wide range of shopping activities that take place on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Shopping activity can be understood as not only purchasing a specific product but also mobile banking and payments, subscribing to services, or paying bills through an app. 

 

Mobile commerce is an answer to a new genre of electronic trends, and it’s gaining more and more attention from eCommerce retailers.

 

But why it is so important

 

Currently, there are around 3.8 billion smartphone users worldwide. By the end of 2020 mCommerce reached $284 billion, or 45% of the total U.S. e-commerce market. Given these numbers, your business should be prepared to embrace mobile commerce and offer your customers exactly what they’re looking for, or you’ll likely lose out to savvy competitors.

 

If you’re an eCommerce entrepreneur and are still ignoring or denying the existence of mCommerce, keep reading to follow up with the latest trends that will help you increase revenue.

 

The real advantages for your company that mCommerce can give

 

Let’s get down to business. Nearly three out of every four dollars spent on online purchases today is done so through a mobile device. This type of eCommerce provides real-time information that can be accessed from anywhere at any time, making the buying decision process faster and less likely to make the customer change their mind. But the monetary gain is not the only one! Through mobile campaigns which are directed to each user’s profile, you can establish a unique relationship with your customers. 

 

Because mobile commerce tends to be less flashy, with less text and no big buttons, your customers are more likely to use it, therefore it is more than plausible to increase sales conversions for your business. Understanding the huge potential of mobile device features and start using them in the best possible way for the benefit of their business is the next huge milestone for eCommerce directors.

 

Pandemic influence on mCommerce

 

Since we saw a huge increase in online shopping during the pandemic, it’s fair to assume that mobile commerce has a part to play in this. As an example, UK retail sales on mobile devices grew 30% compared to Q1 2020 and 25% stronger than Q4 2019. This just demonstrates that consumers are increasingly using mobile devices to shop.

 

How to generate revenue through mobile commerce

 

What do entrepreneurs dream about? About business growth, increased revenue, competitors’ defeat, and the highway to success. That’s why it’s necessary to increase sales through all the channels possible, and mobile commerce is one of them. It is predicted that online stores that do not implement mobile commerce will stop selling over time. For entrepreneurs exploring ways to use mCommerce in an eCommerce store is getting crucial.

 

To make sure that you offer the most to your customers wherever they are, whatever they do, develop a layout that’s specifically designed to help users make a purchase. Adjusted to the page’s high-resolution graphics, compressed key information, and user-friendly navigation significantly reduces the time spent on searching for a product, which in practice translates into increased sales. What’s more, mobile payment solutions combined with your mobile-optimized website make purchasing extremely easy and manageable from a single device.

 

Marketing Automation solutions in mCommerce

 

Mobile marketing automation is designed for tracking app usage, building dynamic behavioral segments, and sending omnichannel campaigns. 

 

By using marketing automation solutions in your mobile shopping system, you can respond faster to consumers, and not only that! Well-managed mobile marketing allows you to: 

 

Send mobile push notifications that users are more likely to respond to than to good old email. 

Communicate via SMS, WhatsApp messages or Viber to deliver a truly omnichannel experience for your contacts.

Deliver in-app notifications based on built profiles and used for product recommendations. 

Track customer behavior in the mobile app.

Get instant feedback from customers, as they are much more likely to interact with SMS compared to email. 

Automate communication with your contacts on their mobile devices.

Create fully responsive content perfectly adjusted to the mobile devices of your customers.

 

All the listed features can leverage AI powered recommendations, which allows you to personalize your offer even better. Mobile marketing automation gives your business a real range of opportunities to increase user experience as well as ROI. One warning – make sure your mobile site or app is well optimized to ensure a smooth, seamless and convenient transaction.

 

Wrapping up

 

Mobile commerce seems to be a powerful tool that is becoming even more powerful given the current pandemic situation. Overall, it’s faster, easier, more accessible, and familiar to everyone who uses a smartphone. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by and take care of your mCommerce to increase your sales.

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