Campaign Attribution: Who gets credit online for ROI?

Mediapost’s Stephen DiMarco wrote a very good article articulating three key points when considering who gets “credit” for online conversions and ROI.  A subject that is much debated these days with many studies being done to show search often gets the credit (due to immediacy of conversion and proximity of timing that searching has to buying/deciding) when display and brand building still play a very powerful role, but simply aren’t measured as easily.  See my earlier blog post on how display actual improves the performance of search campaigns.  Here are Stephen’s three lessons (full article at link below):

Lesson #1: Don’t fall in love with one or two metrics.

Lesson #2: Ad servers can help, but they’re only one tool.

Lesson #3: Integration of data sources is worth the investment of time and resources.

MediaPost Publications Campaign Attribution Isn’t A Zero-Sum Game 05/04/2010.