So, let’s set the expectations straight. Attribution modeling answers a totally different question: how efficient is a marketing channel compared to the others?
Let’s imagine the following scenario: let’s assume you are using AdWords as a marketing channel, and it reports a number of 50 generated conversions with a total value of $ 10,000.
In case all the 50 clients interacted only with AdWords to find your product (mind you, this means they didn’t use any other traffic source to get to your product), all the 50 conversions will be correctly attributed to AdWords regardless of the attribution model which was used. But this is highly improbable.
It is very likely that the 50 clients used more than one marketing channel to discover your product before converting. This means that, when applying an attribution model to AdWords, we will be able to attribute it a lower number of conversions.
Let’s assume we apply Time Decay as an attribution model. It will report 35 conversions to Adwords, which are worth $ 6,000.
After the attribution model is applied on AdWords, the investment will be profitable as long as it is under the profit margin of $ 6,000, regardless how investments are made in the other marketing channels.
Applying the same attribution model to each marketing channel will not only guarantee that every channel will generate a positive ROI, but also that the overall marketing budget will generate a positive ROI.