This is the seventh blog in a 10-part blog series for the Attribution Management Buyers Guide. This seventh section focuses on Time.

Time is one of the most impactful variables when performing attribution. Therefore, it is important that the attribution technology utilized provides you a lot of flexibility to apply different time variables and provides a lot of insight about the time it takes consumers to purchase and to navigate through the Purchase Path.

Here are some questions that you should ask of attribution management vendors to ensure that youll have the flexibility needed to handle this important variable:

•How is time factored in your tools attribution models?
•What kind of flexibility do I have?
•Can you tell me the time from first ad to conversion? Last ad to conversion?
•Can you tell me the time between ad clicks, ad impressions, direct visits, and organic visits in the Purchase Path?
•How long do your cookies last?
•How do I know the appropriate window of time to give credit back to an ad?

The ideal attribution management solution should be flexible with leveraging time as one of the key attribution attributes. Specifically, the solution should allow you to tell the time from first and last click to conversion. It should also be able to measure intervals between all clicks in the Purchase Path. This data, coupled with the ability to set an appropriate time window to apply attribution, will allow you to more accurately attribute proper credit back to the ads that contributed to the sale. In addition, the cookie that the vendor provides should optionally be configurable to last for much greater than 30 days, and it should renew each time that person visits the website.

The ideal attribution management vendor should allow you to easily see the time from first ad to conversion, last ad to conversion, and the time between each ad. The cookie that the vendor provides should last for much greater than 30 days and should renew each time that person visits the website. (less info)