Every marketer has heard of A.I.D.A., right? This little formula is explained in every marketing textbook, mentioned in thousands of blog posts, and pretty much drilled into every marketer’s head. So when it comes to investing millions of dollars into digital marketing campaigns, we wouldn’t forget about something so basic, so logical, and so elemental as a sales cycle? We wouldn’t forget that strangers typically become customers through 5 basic stages: awareness, interest, desire and decision, and then finally action?

Until recently, we as digital marketers really have been blinded by “last click attribution.” It’s a fancy way of saying that digital marketers tend to give most, or all the credit, to the last marketing touch-point. In other words, digital marketers tend to focus and invest most heavily into the last stage of the buying cycle–action.

Last click attribution is why SEO and PPC campaigns have retained the lions share of digital ad spend over the last 10 years. Let’s face it – everyone heads to Google once they become aware of and interested in a brand, product, or service. And this awareness and interest usually arrives from another ad source such as a banner ad. Yet the banner ad that started and planted your message into the consumer’s brain to get the whole thing rolling gets none of the credit. Instead PPC search ads and SEO campaigns get all the glory because if you’re anything like 95% of digital marketers out there, you’re probably using Analytics to measure your campaign conversion and those conversions are inherently tied to the last click generated before the desired action (sale, lead, download, etc) was completed. Clicks sell products. Clicks create leads. Impressions? Wasted brand awareness, right? Think again.