Attribution is Hard: Is MTA Worth the Effort?

“Think MTA is dead?”

If those words sound familiar, it’s because you’ll find this exact same statement in our most-recent 2021 State of MTA report, released earlier this year. Much like these words themselves, the state of MTA is in fact a contradiction right now.

On one hand, 81% of marketers in North America are either using multi-touch attribution (MTA) or are planning to in the near future. However, on the other hand, only 40% of marketers have a formalized MTA solution in place.

While MMA believes in the power of MTA measurement, there has been a lot of negative press on its future given the challenges around the expected loss of signal, usually talked about in terms of cookie deprecation and restrictions to IDFA. The MMA thought it was time to do a balanced and thoughtful exploration of the real state of MTA.

MTA Is Dead, Long Live MTA is an adjunct report to the State of MTA Report released earlier this year. The report pulls back the curtain and provides an honest and unbiased assessment of the current state of MTA and reveals the three key roadblocks that are inhibiting marketers from adopting true multi-touch attribution: Data, Organization and Methodology (see below for more detail).

The report, which compiles the findings of from a survey of 250 marketers, shows not only the barriers faced when it comes MTA but also provides an overview of recent developments that will give marketers a path forward to achieving a comprehensive MTA solution.