MMA’s MTA Request for Information (RFI) Guidance Package and Interactive Scoring Tool Released to Members

NEW YORK, November 16, 2016 — A new survey released today from the Mobile Marketing Association shows that 75 percent of marketers say they will adopt a multi-touch attribution (MTA) solution by 2019, however the available solutions are not in-line with their performance needs.

The survey, which serves as a baseline of marketers’ intentions, familiarity and experiences with MTA solutions, showed that marketers believe that MTA is potentially a powerful attribution and planning tool. Marketers believe that, although MTA is now more focused on conversions and sales, in the future it will also help them with upper funnel metrics, with almost 80 percent of marketers reporting that MTA will be the solution providing clarity for both budgeting and agile marketing efforts.

However, despite the promise today’s solutions might offer, marketers are still not confident in today’s vendor offerings. Marketers’ responses indicate there are several areas the vendor community should attempt to address:

• Complex offerings need more transparency: Only one out of four marketers who currently use MTA solutions say they are familiar enough with MTA approaches and methodologies.
• Costs and ROI must be in balance: Marketers need to be convinced that net impact will be positive. While more than half of marketers using MTA solutions believe it drives incremental results, only 40 percent of marketers report that they are convinced that the cost of MTA covers the benefits.

For the marketers who have yet to test MTA solutions, the complexity of the offerings combined with their lack of resources of are the main adoption challenges.

“Brands admit that they need to deepen their teams’ knowledge on attribution solutions, but the black-box approach is leading to hesitation and a lack of trust,” explains Greg Stuart, CEO of the MMA. “The promise of what MTA could deliver to marketers is the reason why we are empowering brands with the tools they need to find the right partner for the right program that meets their brands’ needs. We want to help MTA solution providers build this really important market.”

MMA’s MTA Interactive RFI Tool Released
The MMA also released their Request for Information (RFI) interactive tool to MMA members, providing marketers a scoring system brands can use to understand and rank vendor offerings based on their own business objectives.

This comprehensive, deep-dive analysis into the providers, dynamics and implications for marketers around MTA is being led by the MMA Global Board of Directors, working with Joel Rubinson, President of Rubinson Partners, Inc. and former Chief Research Officer of the Advertising Research Federation. Due to the technical complexity of MTA, the MMA also aligned with the Marketing Science Institute as an academic partner to support future technical development. The Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to bridging the gap between academic marketing theory and business practice.

"The MMA’s MTA decision guide will help marketers distill the complexity of the RFI process in finding the right vendor for their business needs as well as providing a framework for faster and more confident decision making,” said Lou Paskalis, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Media Planning, Investment and Measurement Executive, Bank of America. "With this comprehensive detail, a process that took my team over half a year, would likely have taken us one month."

In addition to the RFI tool, the MMA has scheduled webinars covering the pros and cons of different MTA modeling approaches, the importance of unified IDs, and differences between MTA and marketing mix modeling. The MMA will also create working groups to support ongoing developments under the overall governance of the brand-led MATT steering committee.

The MMA Marketing Attribution Think Tank (MATT) was founded earlier this fall to help rethink the world of marketing measurement and attribution, giving marketers better tools and confidence in connecting marketing to business outcomes. The first MATT initiative of is focused on Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), as many marketers believe it to be the Holy Grail for fixing marketing measurement. For more information on MMA’s MATT effort visit http://www.mmaglobal.com/matt.

About the MMA
The MMA is the world’s leading global non-profit trade mobile marketing association comprised of more than 800 member companies, from nearly fifty countries around the world. Our members hail from every faction of the mobile marketing ecosystem, including brand marketers, agencies, mobile technology platforms, media companies, operators and others. The MMA’s mission is to accelerate the transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile, driving business growth with closer and stronger consumer engagement. Anchoring the MMA’s mission are four core pillars; to cultivate inspiration by driving innovation for the Chief Marketing Officer; to build the mobile marketing capabilities for marketing organizations through fostering know-how and confidence; to champion the effectiveness and impact of mobile through research providing tangible ROI measurement; and to advocate for mobile marketers. Additionally, MMA industry-wide committees work collaboratively to develop and advocate global best practices and lead standards development.

Members include: 1-800-Flowers.com, Allstate, American Express, Bank Of America, Campbell’s, Chase, Chobani, Choice Hotels, Citi, Colgate-Palmolive, DataXu, Dunkin’ Brands, E*TRADE, Electronic Arts, ESPN, Facebook, Ford, Foursquare, Google, Havas, Hilton, iHeartMedia, InMobi, Johnson & Johnson, Krux, Marriott, MasterCard, McDonald’s, Mondelez, Nestle, OpenMarket, Pandora, Pfizer, Pinterest, PlaceIQ, Procter & Gamble, R/GA, RadiumOne, Razorfish, Samsung, SAP, Sears, Spotify, Starcom, The Coca-Cola Company, The Rubicon Project, The Weather Company, T-Mobile, TUNE, Ubimo, Unilever, Verve, VEVO, Vibes, Visa, Walmart, Wendy’s, xAd , Zurich and many more. The MMA’s global headquarters are located in New York with regional operations Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and Latin America (LATAM). For more information about the MMA please visit www.mmaglobal.com.