The challenge of attribution has perplexed retailers for 150 years and remains one of the more significant complaints. Traditionally, there are 2 general approaches to attribution. The first and most effective is Multi-Source Attribution. Advertisers attempt to determine how and when the many different forms of advertising influence a consumer's behavior. For this, retailers must consider a consumer's shopping journey and how different forms of advertising and content influence different moments along this journey.

The other is Single-Source Attribution. Here, advertisers attempt to determine the first source of influence, or the last. Most furniture retailers choose to track the last source because it is easiest. Their store sales reps typically ask shoppers, "how did you hear about us." Shoppers think for a second and blurt out an answer. But, the shopper really doesn't know why they came into the store - because they have been influenced by so many different forms of advertising, and many subconsciously. Using this strategy does not generate information that helps retailers better understand how to influence consumer shopping behavior and decisions.

In the home furnishings industry (HFI), we've become "spoiled" by the illusion of attribution.

Online advertising metrics like ROAS (return on ad spend) and CPA (cost per acquisition) only provide a false sense of attribution. For the few online sales made by HFI retailers, those sales are usually the result of searches for the store's name, demonstrating that these purchasers aren't strangers to our businesses. The algorithms heavily weight the value of searches for the store's name because those are the searches that generate sales. Given enough time, the algorithms would stop showing ads for anything other than the store's name because those are the only searches that lead to sales. A Click is recorded, a sale is made, and that Click gets credit for the sale. But had it not been for all the other interactions between the consumer and the store prior to that last encounter, the sale likely would've never happened. Ad interactions like seeing a billboard, driving by the store, seeing them on social media, watching a video ad, and the thousands of other exposures to the store that all lead to the store occupying a space in the consumer's mind. Therein lies the illusion - we overweight the last interaction and underweight, or even dismiss, all the others.

We tend to become slaves to data meaning that we apply importance to things just because we can measure them, rather than measuring things that are important. This leads to the illusion of attribution mentioned above.

Tango's Targeted Multi-Touch Digital Circular Program advertising program is one of the only advertising solutions that provides a better sense of attribution because we know each audience member targeted by our ad tactics and can then match that target list to those people who purchased during the campaign. This removes shopper memory error and lack of self-awareness. But even then, we can not be 100% sure of whether the match is the result of causation or coincidence. And, this program does not take into consideration other forms of advertising influencing a consumer at different moments of their journey.

The Targeted Multi-Touch Digital Circular Program provides more insight than most on attribution and ROI, but still does not fully resolve John Wanamaker's famous complaint from the early 1900s when he opined, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

We are getting close though.