Next big thing in attribution: tracking the person not the device

When it comes to attribution measure your success against the person and not just the channel

Being customer-centric is widely accepted as a way that brands can differentiate, but how do you do achieve this? One way is to target precisely and tailor the experience, but also to ensure consistency across touchpoints. That’s not easy, especially when you consider how many devices a customer may have, how many times they may shuffle between these, the time it takes to book and so on. Last year, for example, lastminute.com told EyeforTravel.com that, on average, consumers switch between devices up to 27 times a day.

One brand that is working to achieve a seamless transition between devices is the Ritz-Carlton hotel company. To find out more, Ritesh Gupta talks to Clayton F. Ruebensaal, the company’s VP, Global Marketing.

EFT: What are the challenges today in assessing performance of a travel brand?

CFR: One big challenge is that it’s not a one device per person. It isn’t surprising to find a Blackberry and an iPhone on the table in front of every person (in meetings). You see the same thing in our hotels: one guest = laptop, iPad, iPhone. It’s not up to us to say which device is more important because often decisions are based on different information, interactions, and experiences that are happening across these devices. One minute a person may get their review on the phone, the next on their tablet. The next a person may ask friends on Facebook on his computer, and then book on his phone because when he’s ready to pull the trigger while he’s on a subway to work.

EFT: But why is this important?

CFR: For brands, it’s incumbent on us to understand how each device can bring our story to life best and execute against that. This applies especially to the mobile experiences we create as our guests stay with us. We know from research that our customers are increasingly mobile and we are challenged to answer these new demands. And that gets expensive and that gets time consuming…and there lies the challenge.

EFT: In a multi-device environment, it’s hard to attribute where the customer came from. How do you see this evolving?

CFR: Attribution is much more complicated today. The more devices and the more channels consumers use as part of the process of choosing you, the more you need to measure the part and the whole. We experience the same challenges as all other companies, namely the technical challenges to identify one customer across multiple device types. Travellers are looking at over 20 websites before making a decision and they are interacting across multiple devices through that process. If you want to win that set of eye balls, and the wallet that goes with it, you need to participate across all devices and measure your success against that person, not just the effectiveness of each individual channel. Doing the latter would be like measuring everyone on your soccer team by how many goals they score.

EFT: What’s the next big thing in attribution?

CFR: The ability to measure individual customers or groups of customers, not each channel’s effectiveness. We will also need to connect the dots as our guests use a multitude of different devices across all phases of their journey with us. Creating a holistic personalised experience and attribution model along this path will be key.  

EFT: How does analysis help to understand each impression or click and how does this inform product development?

CFR: It has to be a combination of both. Our business centres around a high-touch personal experience and the communication with our guests will always remain key for us to understand their demands and to engage them. But analysis also helps us to identify the wishes and needs of our guests in a more streamlined way – especially guests that haven’t stayed with us before. The main hurdles for the latter are technical – there are still gaps in tracking one customer holistically across all devices. In addition, we certainly struggle to allow our enterprise systems to interact with the ‘new normal’ of mobile.

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