For the past five years, MMA Global's Marketing Attribution Think Tank (MATT) has conducted an annual State of MTA Benchmark Study, sourcing insights from senior marketers in North America from October 2020 to May 2021. This year’s study found that while MTA adoption dropped 5 percent YoY, there was a 14 percent increase in the Net Promoter Score (NPS) of MTA providers, signaling the capabilities and experience of marketing organizations are the key to unlocking MTA’s potential value. Driving the increase in NPS was accumulated experience of marketers with attribution, as now nearly 60 percent of marketers have worked with at least one MTA vendor and 40 percent have worked with more than one, providing those marketers with the experience needed to effectively assess and apply the best solutions for this organization.

Key Findings Include:

In an Era of Accelerated Digital Transformation the Promise of Multi-Touch Attribution Persists, but the Struggle is Real

• 81 percent of marketing organizations currently use MTA or plan to do so in the future. Further, 46 percent of marketers believe MTA is still the future of attribution while only 21 percent of respondents say MTA is unrealistic given the realities of advertising
• Of those who utilize an MTA solution, 31 percent of their media budget is being measured by MTA (no change YoY) and the ROI of MTA solutions remained at 7 percent
• More than 1 out of 3 companies who are in the process of implementing MTA have unsuccessfully attempted to do so previously

Data and Organizational Challenges Prevent MTA Adoption

• 54 percent of MTA users still don’t have a clear sense of ROI
• 43 percent of MTA users say they don’t use MTA to assess their total media spend because of the lack of individual level data available for traditional media
• Among non-MTA users, a lack of evidence regarding MTA’s value jumped from 20 percent to 29 percent as a key reason they don’t use MTA solutions and, furthermore, that lack of evidence has prevented 26% of marketers (up 7% YoY) from getting buy-in from their executives to implement MTA solutions