A case study from the Stukent platform (https://www.stukent.com/). Presentation deck was created for the course, 203 Web Analytics, Postgraduate Social Media Program at Seneca College (February 2018). Tool used: Microsoft Powerpoint The analysis is only for academic learning purposes.

1. Global Attribution
Date: February 22, 2018
Gord Smith, Course Instructor
Seneca College
SMD 203 Web Analytics
Stukent Case Study
Presented by, Carolina Feng

2. INDEX
u Background
u The Biased System
u The Problem
u Recommendations
The case study shows how online marketing
efforts do not drive purchasing incidence and
purchasing amount for a big retailer that is
similar to Macy from the USA.
However, with the emergence of e-commerce
and ongoing evolution of contexts in social
media and online platforms, customers and
brands exchange communications and build
relationships every single day. There are
existing tools that enable businesses with
improvising online marketing strategies, and
measuring online activities that produces data-
driven information to benchmark sales while
taking into account the issue of attribution.

3. BUSINESS MODELAPPROACH AD/CAMPAIGN TEST DATA COLLECTION
Businesses seek for accurate tracking methods to measure the correlation between online/offline efforts, customer spending and sales.
A study showed recent approaches to understanding how ads influence buying behavior and how we can confront attribution problems
by Peter Danaher and Tracey Dagger in 2013.
Carolina Feng Chen, SMD203 Global Attribution
• Chosen retailer for the
purpose of analysis is
based in Australia, similar
to Macy’s business
structure (brick and mortar)
• Selected audience were
their LP (Loyalty Program)
members because there
was already existing
database that could be
used for comparison later in
the analysis stage.
February 22, 2018 | Slide 3
Background
• To measure “Advertising
Exposure” and “Purchasing
at the individual level”
• Required a list of customers
with concurrent data (past
history of purchases and
frequency of spending)
• Exploring the amount and
frequency of exposure of
different individuals to all
forms of advertisement, and
how it affects purchasing
frequency, value
• Sale duration was set to be
26 days long.
• 10 advertising channels
included:
mass media channels
(television, newspapers,
radio and media ads);
direct media (online display
ads, Google search ads
and social media ads) and;
direct media (catalogs,
postal mail, and e-mail).
• Survey created to measure
members' exposure to the ads
during the 26 days sale
campaign. (Asking non-direct
questions instead of asking
directly the amount of time
being exposed to ads)
• Online survey to garner
information was sent to 20,000
randomly selected LP members
at the end of the sale campaign.
• Selected target for data analysis
were women of ages between
25 to 54.
• Sales messages were kept
consistent across all media.
Then, “Type II Tobit Model” was born.

4. The designed “Type II Tobit model” by Peter & Tracey allowed possible YET also biased insights on the effects of ads exposure relative to
consumers’ spending or likelihood of spending. There are inherent issues, such as dependent and independent variables, that invalidate
the results and connection of ads exposure to purchase behaviour.
Carolina Feng Chen, SMD203 Global Attribution February 22, 2018 | Slide 4
Assumption according to Table 1 & 2 Situation Analysis Variables to consider
(Table 1) The more people are exposed to ads, the more they are
likely to make purchases and increase spending.
(Table 1) Customer ID 418373 (purple highlight) has the most exposure
to all forms of ads in general, yet there was no effect on purchasing
behavior.
Environment & Purchase Variable – being exposed to ads more may increase the urge to spend
money, but in this situation, the customer may have purchased something without using a LP card
hence no record attached to this profile.
(Table 1) The more people are exposed to ads, the more their
spending value increases.
(Table 1) Customer ID 458318 (red highlight) is one of the members
with least exposure across many ad forms but with relative high
spending compared to the rest in the table.
Spending variable 1– more exposure to ads does not necessarily correspond to higher purchasing
behavior, but this could suggest that the customer generally spends more (higher income).
Spending variable 2 – Alternatively, the situation can also suggest that the customer may have spent
less than before the ad campaign. As a result, even with exposure to ads, it did not influence
purchase behavior to some extent.
(Table 1 & 2) Exposure from Search ads and Social Media don’t
seem to drive purchasing behavior up, nor did it affect purchase
incident or amount much.
(Table 1 & 2) As the case study suggest, there was no availability for
online shopping for this retailer. Hence, not much effect on purchasing
behavior. Search ads are able to inform users about product
information, hence in Table 2, it is shown to have effect in influencing
purchase incidence.
Target audiences - Besides the fact that the retailer did not accommodate online shopping, there is
a chance that Social media ads may have not been targeting the right audiences in the right
channels, and display ads may have been placed in the wrong sites instead of effectively being
displayed at sites where desired targets are. The retailer knew they were going to pick LP members
therefore ads were pushed in other channels where they are most responsive.
(Table 2) Television and Mail caused highest ”Purchase
Incidence”.
(Table 2) People, i.e. LP members whom are women of age 25 to 54
are more influenced by TV ads as they are “reminded” by TV ads while
watching favorite shows to bite the sales hook encouraging store visits.
Target audiences – The results are not biased in terms of its targeted audience because the data are
based on their LP members with no outliers.
(Table 1 & 2) Newspaper ad exposure seems to encourage
purchase behavior, especially showing a larger impact on
“Purchase Amount”.
(Table 1 & 2) Newspapers normally have one to a few dominant page
filled with sale prices and offers, which may have entice targets to
visit store urgently.
General Media Consumption - Display ads and magazines ads are pretty similar to newspaper in term
of layout design and overall look. However, this may suggest that targeted audience did not relate
ads to site contents at all.
Table 1. Global Attribution Case Study Table 2
The Biased System
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• This model cannot generally be applied across other business fields such as big
corporations who sell products through intermediaries (such as retailers and
wholesale retailers) since they are not able to retain individual sales database.
• Offline ad exposure is hard to measure, usually companies need a third-party
agent such as COMB to help provide insights in OOH ad exposure measurements,
then tie back to their revenues with proved formulas. Same can be applied to Radio
ads, Magazine ads and other offline media forms.
• Are offline and online activities of those customers presented correctly? As
mentioned in the table above, how does the Loyalty Program card work? If online
and offline purchases by LP users are not linked together for the current database
that is used, the results become unreliable and diluted.

5. • Without the case of having a loyalty program where a record of
spending is “attainable”, how does one determine the general
purchase level for others who are not or do not provide such
programs?
• Purchasing behavior ties back personal income, the
purchasing cycle in which a customer is situated in and
other influence factors such as ideology, environment
and community.
• People who consume more media are generally those with
more disposable income, hence they are bigger spenders
in their preferred markets. In other words, they are more
likely to be much more open to media consumption (ads)
from other markets too. Their media consumption behavior
should be considered in the criteria too.
• 1) The target group was very specific in the model, hence the
results were more controlled in some manner. However, this
issue would dilute accurate patterns of how influential ads are
when there are different ads targeting different audiences.
• 2) Specifically assigned form of ads that work best for
particular group of audiences who are more prompt to act
upon the inflicted impact on their purchasing cycle.
It is very hard to measure offline marketing and online marketing efforts simultaneously in order to be able to benchmark what medium is
generating more sales for a business. The problem mainly lies in the aspect of attribution in advertising, which often confuses marketers
as to decide which form and medium of ad should be given credit to that resulted in sales conversion from customers.
Carolina Feng Chen, SMD203 Global Attribution February 22, 2018 | Slide 5
The Problem
ENDOGENEITY
1) Allocating more efforts on ad mediums that
worked best for the LP users.
2) Target other type of customers who would
have different reactions to online ads instead of
using all for LP users that showcases no results.
THE PURCHASE-VIEWING BIAS
As mentioned in the table before, general media
consumption should be consider.
CUSTOMER HETEROGENEITY
General spending level varies from customer to
customer. During the campaign, a customer who
spent less or none could have spent more prior to
that period.
3 MAIN ISSUES FROM THE MODEL Television
Newspaper
Radio
Magazines
Online
Display
Search Ads
Social Media
Catalog
Postal Mail
E-mail
With the complicated amount of LP users input for the
model, depending on the criteria & variables, purchase
influence could have stemmed from any of the ads forms.
So which ad should
take credit for sales
conversions?

6. Carolina Feng Chen, SMD203 Global Attribution
The model in general cannot be applied to all type of businesses, however. With the rising popularity of e-commerce and online shopping the past 2
years, online media can either encourage purchase incidence as well as purchase amount. To achieve such goal, online analytics tools can be used
efficiently to set goals that can track performance and diminish attribution problems across different channels.
February 22, 2018 | Slide 6
Recommendations (Online Marketing Efforts)
Google Analytics also offers a second tool, DDA (data driven
attribution) to analyze advertising channels by calculating their
ROAS in contrast to its counterfactual situation. In other words,
say for example, if 100 customers made $400 purchases that was
induced by clicking on a display ad, the counterfactual analysis
would be: what would the result be if another 100 customers
who were not exposed to the display ad (taking into account the
fact that those 100 have the same level of media exposure and
similar levels of spending level)
Although not directly impacting sales conversion, businesses can
set up conversion goals in Google Analytics for their ads and
websites in order to build trust and nurture customer-brand
relationship. Most importantly to get insight into their ROI, in
which case, this will progressively influence purchase behaviour
and purchase amount depending on the value that the brand is
giving to the consumers.
Social Media Platforms Advertising Tools
Using social media ads with effective geo-targeting and
demographic settings can drive traffic to online website or to
brick and mortar store. Facebook Advertising allow businesses to
target their desired audiences but also to track whether it is
driving higher success rates of goals set for the ad campaigns.
Different methods of attribution can be analysed by Google
Analytics by doing side-by-side comparison. The metric used in
this method is ROAS (return on ad spend). When the calculated
ROAS shows up to be consistent throughout the different ads
channel, it is indicating positive results. Otherwise, inconsistency
will require additional tool for further in-depth analysis.
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2
3
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Measuring the performance and efforts of digital ads displayed
in websites, searches, social media platforms, emails, can be
tracked via Google Analytics in several ways.
There are also other approaches in Google Analytics, . To track
ads from social media, there are other tools available to use.
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