However what I feel engagement mapping allows us to do is gain more understanding about what IS recordable. Unfortunately, whether we like it or not digital has hamstrung itself by pushing its ability to track metrics as its number one selling point.

The primary improvement I see from engagement mapping over last cookie wins is simply that (to a degree) we are able to see these touch points and that in certain cases it can help us as agencies explain to marketers why an investment in something they are not seeing DR from is still worth investing in. After all, as you stated, they already do this with TV, Print and Radio. Unfortunately because of our own over-reliance on data the burden is on us to provide data that supports this.

Once again, this is not relevant to everyone. A car company, or a FMCG will likely be happy to go off branding metrics and may not be evaluating every placement down to a conversion level. But for those clients that are conversion focussed it provides us with evidence of the incremental gain possible through online “branding” investment.

Just my thoughts on it, obviously.

the digital solutions around this (engagement mapping etc) look at digital in almost complete isolation – so try and work out all the different exposure points and add a ‘value’ to each of them to work out the role each component played.

this is as flawed as last cookie attribution as it treats digital as a stand alone medium when we know that other mediums contribute to an action.

So let’s say in a day I drive to work – listen to the radio and hear an ad for ANZ – then I logon to x news site and see a banner. Later that day I am watching the news at home and an ANZ ad comes on … and then I search for ANZ and click on a paid link.

This scenario cannot be attributed correctly through technology … but we know TV and radio have played a role. I could have even had a chat with someone around finance products. Even with multi attribution techniques it’s misleading as it’ll only look at internet based contact points.

Now – add another curve ball … different computers used. hence cookies go out the window.

Digital’s obsession with attribution is not a positive thing … it often shows a lack of understanding across the industry around what makes a consumer ‘do something’. It’s not as simple a journey as we wish it was.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by JoelyRighteous: a post I wrote tonight about media attribution and my guess where it is heading in 2010 – http://bit.ly/8jee6R...