Attribution and Tag Management, Just Like Peanut Butter & Mustard

There are always those strange anomalies that occur in any new space, Tag Management is no exception. When I first joined the race this year I noticed that for some reason evaluators of the Tag Management space would many times throw in Attribution to the tail end of their requirements like some sort of non-permitted guest room to their house.  I decided to dig deeper into why this was occurring by speaking with prospects as well as other vendors in the space.

As it would suggest, customer journey is something that CAN be tracked as a side benefit from Tag Management, admittedly some of Tealium’s customers request data feeds and reporting on customer journey.  The problem occurs when customers start to request the real attribution metrics and reporting, that’s where us Tag Management providers fall short. At the heart of attribution is the understanding of where marketers should spend their advertising budget, determining which channels are most effective, which ones are providing proper contributions to conversions, and how they relate to each other. This is an area specialized by enterprise Attribution vendors with years of experience, best practices and access to the financial data necessary to make such decisions.

By attempting to bolt on Attribution (and who knows what else) as a key component to their solution Tag Management companies will find they are missing the boat when it comes to Enterprise Tag Management. Likewise companies looking to evaluate Tag Management providers will be forced to settle with a sub-par platform in order to try and procure an ‘all in one’ tool (a ‘worst of both worlds’ scenario if you will). I believe that relying on the wonderfully evolved Ecosystem and remaining fully Agnostic will create a long and lasting partnership between the Tag Management vendor and those customers committed to realizing the full potential of what that they offer.  Just my 2 cents, and with that Ali, tag you’re it!