In a Spotlight presentation at the Agency Summit in Bonita Springs, Fla., Keith Johnson, general manager at I-Behavior Interactive, wanted to discuss the "dreaded a-word"-- attribution.

"If we get attribution right," Johnson said, "we can decrease marketing spend and increase dollars to the bottom line. If we get it wrong, there are horrible consequences…without data, there is no digital."

The digital industry is full of metrics and measurements -- first click, CTR, last click, multi-click, PPC -- but "the click is not a measuring tool; it is an input device," Johnson said, adding that only six percent of the online audience counts for 100 percent of the clicks. "We need to stop using clicks."

I-Behavior understands that the online purchase process is not linear or clean, which is why it looks to view-based allocation instead of clicks. "Even if an ad gets zero clicks, we still believe it made an impact," Johnson said.

The purchase process isn't "search, view, click, order." Instead, it's a much more complex operation involving thousands of different paths. I-Behavior takes that into account, using mathematics and pro-rate attribution to determine the true value of various campaigns.

Using multi-source attribution -- giving all of the various media sources 100 percent credit -- I-Behavior then determines the best sources by increasing the sample size, retesting, re-measuring, and adjusting the composition of media accordingly. Basically, it handles the incredibly complex allocation algorithms so clients can get a better idea of what's working and what's not.

I-Behavior's results are much more accurate because it looks at attribution from a multi-source marketing standpoint instead of a linear accounting point of view. Its methods allow clients to increase ROI through decisions made with the best data. 

Armed with knowledge garnered from a decade of experience aggregating the SKU-level purchase history of millions of individuals, I-Behavior understands the requirements of digital marketers today, and it is here to arm you with algorithms that reflect the complexity of the digital landscape -- not equations that don't make sense outside of an accounting model. 

Lucia Davis is associate editor at iMedia Connection.