How to Marry Offline and Online Attribution Data for a 360 View in Google Analytics

Measurement & Analytics — Wed., Aug. 19, 2020

Developing and implementing a marketing attribution model is a modern-day practice many marketers use to gain a comprehensive view of a customer's journey. Who wouldn't be excited at the prospect of identifying exactly what led to a customer's making a purchase decision? Though marketers continue to improve and refine the process, one challenge remains: how to marry offline and online marketing attribution to truly gain meaningful insight.

The launch of Google Analytics opened the door for marketers to dive headfirst into online marketing. With the integration of platforms like Salesforce Sales Cloud and Google Analytics 360, marketers can now import data from Sales Cloud directly into Analytics 360, allowing for an offline-online combination. Brands might also offer customer reward programs that track offline behavior, such as how many times the customer's fleet of vehicles fill up at a fueling station.

The primary objective of marrying offline and online attribution is to derive specific return on ad spend (ROAS) data that helps determine future campaigns and hopefully results in increased sales. Now that marketers can determine how offline behavior affects the customer journey, more organizations will look to combine it with online data, providing greater customer understanding and increased revenue.

... continue reading below