Panel of Retailers Talk Attribution at eTail

Vermont Teddy Bear (VTB) mostly uses last-touch attribution, said Victor Castro, but it does have an unorthodox strategy — some might call it crazy — for offline media attribution (the company invests heavily in TV and radio advertising). When customers go to check out on VTB's website, they're required to fill out a text field on how they heard of the company. They can't complete their purchase until they do so. "It may go against best practice, but we get 100 percent participation," Castro said jokingly. He reasons that while he may lose some potential orders, that money is more than made up for in the customer feedback he's getting, which enables him to optimize future marketing spend.

Alex and Ani is trying to leverage social sign-in data to help it track customers and do a better job with order attribution, as well as personalize future offers to customers and prospects, said Ryan Bonifacino. For example, if the company learns from Facebook that you're a Boston Red Sox fan, it's going to promote a Boston Red Sox bangle to you the next time you engage with the brand. And on the flip side, if it knows that you've already purchased that product from Alex and Ani, it's going to repress it in future promotions.

Will Ferguson of 1-800-Flowers.com echoed Bonifacino's point, saying that the floral brand has found success tracking customers who are logged into Google (e.g., Gmail or Google+). And Victor Castro said Vermont Teddy Bear tries to entice customers to interact with the brand via social media; once they do, the retailer is more easily able to track their behavior.