Snap Continues to Push for Multi-Touch Attribution Over Last Touch/Last Click

Snap Inc. commissioned Neustar for a study of multi-touch attribution covering 10 brands across multiple verticals including consumer packaged goods, entertainment and retail. The company pointed out that many advertisers currently rely on desktop web analytics as their primary guidance, primarily focusing on the last touch or last click before conversions, adding that more than one-third of U.S marketers and agencies responding to a recent study said last-click attribution will become more important in a cookie-less world. Snap explained in a blog post, “Snapchat is an immersive platform built for a new age of marketing, creating opportunities to connect with consumers via augmented reality and vertical video. We believe measurement approaches must evolve for this new era. Relying on last-click attribution as a primary lever for digital media optimization can severely harm brands in the long term, causing them to lose out on major opportunities to grow their brand. 77% of Snapchatters say they are unlikely to take action after seeing an interesting ad on their phone that would result in a last-click attributable event.” The company described MTA as a modeled approach that assigns an advertiser’s conversion credit across a wide range of marketing touchpoints, factoring in both a person’s natural tendency to take action, as well as the impact of their marketing interactions. Neustar said most measured impressions in its study fell within the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021 and covered only the U.S., adding that Snapchat’s contributions to online and offline conversion events were evaluated and compared with other major paid digital media elements, factoring in efficacy, impact and efficiency, as well as display, paid search, online video and social. The study’s findings included: On average, 3.7 times fewer conversions and 3.2 times less revenue were attributed to Snapchat when using a last-touch attribution approachSnapchat is more likely to be a consumer’s first exposure to the brand among converters when compared with search, online video or social.On average, Snapchat converts 10% faster on display and 7% faster than social, with 44% of conversions involving Snapchat occurring within one week of exposure, second only to online search.Among the 10 brands measured, per dollar spent, Snapchat significantly reaches more unique prospects than online video (191%) or social (50%).Snapchat achieved 10.5 times more efficiency than paid search. Snap said in its blog post, “Using MTA provides visibility to Snapchat’s true performance. When compared to other channels, Snapchat, relative to spend, contributes disproportionately more to both attributable conversions and revenue. Snapchat’s incrementality—or new conversions as a proportion of total impressions—is aligned with other social and exceeds both display and online video. Efficiency, defined as incremental conversions per unit of spend, is moderately higher on average than display, online video or other social.” The company concluded, “As reflected by research, relying solely on last-click or last-touch attribution will cause advertisers to lose out on the ability to convert new and existing customers efficiently in general and across the entirety of their digital campaigns. At Snapchat, we take a holistic measurement approach, rooted in incrementality, that considers a variety of privacy-centric methods aligned with campaign key performance indicators.”