Allocating costs & demand

We believe, like most of you, that today you have to be Channel Agnostic. You don’t care where the customer buys, as long as they buy! But this is too easily said and rarely done. Our P&L statements force the issue of allocating costs and demand, creating a need to justify every marketing investment dollar.

The way we see it, you have only a few choices:

1. Simple assignment of customers to the last marketing effort that influenced their purchase- if only it were that easy! How do you define influence?
2. Assignment of customers across the multiple marketing contacts influencing their purchase- ideal but fractionalizing demand is easier than fractionalizing customer behavior! How do you split Mary Jane between your catalog, email, and paid search program?

So, where does this leave us?