How Hospitality Marketers Can Enhance Data-Driven Attribution Modeling with Call Data 

Attribution modeling is a critical component of all omnichannel marketing strategies, but it’s especially important for hospitality marketers. Whether someone is looking to book a room, a cruise, or put together a full-on theme park vacation package, they’ll engage with brands across many channels. There’s a lot of data to stitch together to get a complete view of a customer journey that spans search, social, paid media, websites, phone calls, and more. Proper attribution modeling can help you give credit where it’s due and paint a more accurate picture of the revenue that each channel drives.

What is Attribution Modeling?

Attribution modeling is a vital tool in the omnichannel marketer's arsenal, especially in the hospitality industry. Attribution modeling is the process of attributing value or credit to different marketing channels and touchpoints that a guest interacts with on their journey to making a purchase. It enables you to assign how much credit each interaction gets that leads to a conversion. This gives you a better understanding of how your marketing performs and can help you optimize every channel across the entire buying journey.

Attribution modeling allows hospitality marketers to:

1. Optimize Marketing Strategies: Attribution models enable advertisers to measure and optimize the unique touchpoints that lead to conversions and sales. This allows marketers to understand what works and what doesn't, thereby enabling them to optimize their strategies for better results.
   
   
2. Understand Buying Behavior: Successful marketing relies on a brand's ability to connect with guests and learn how they think and make booking decisions. Attribution modeling provides insights into these behaviors, helping marketers tailor their strategies accordingly.
   
   
3. Value Marketing Channels: Many marketers use attribution modeling to help determine the comparative value of a marketing or advertising channel. This can guide investment decisions, ensuring resources are allocated to the most effective channels.
   
   
4. Increase Sales Impact: Attribution models are used to measure the impact of marketing campaigns on sales. By understanding which marketing efforts drive sales, marketers can focus on those strategies that have the most impact, potentially increasing revenue.
   
   
5. Navigate the Digital Landscape: As digital marketing gets more sophisticated, the topic of attribution models has become increasingly relevant. For hospitality marketers, understanding how guests discover their offerings in the crowded digital space can be a game-changer.

One of the best ways to build your attribution models is in Google Analytics, but the way attribution modeling works in Google Analytics 4 has recently changed.

How Attribution Modeling Changed in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

In Google Analytics UA and early versions of GA4, there were six different attribution models to choose from. Today there are only two attribution models in GA4: last click and data-driven attribution, also known as DDA. Google’s reasoning for this is that DDA is more accurate than any of the previously available attribution models. They’re so convinced of this that they’ll default you to DDA modeling unless you actively choose last-click. 

You Won’t Get the Most Value From Data-Driven Attribution in GA4 Without Including Phone Call Conversions

Most of your potential guests will call at some point before their stay, whether that’s to check availability or book their stay. Since a majority of your guests will call and many — if not most — of your conversions happen on the phone, you should include phone call conversions in DDA to improve your reporting and get the best results from Google Ads Smart Bidding.

Excluding phone call conversions from your switch to DDA would be problematic as you’d be missing a huge chunk of your conversions, which makes it impossible for Smart Bidding to properly optimize your ads. 

Hospitality Marketers Driving Phone Call Conversions Need the Right Data to Use DDA

Including phone calls in your switch to DDA is also problematic if you aren’t capturing the right data on calls. That’s because many calls from Google Ads are not conversions — they’re not calling you to book a stay, buy tickets, or take whatever action your business defines as a conversion.

So if your Google Ads account doesn’t have data on calls — or if you treat every call as a conversion regardless of intent or outcome — you can’t use DDA for calls or else DDA will credit your ads and keyword for driving calls that are not true conversions. Any Smart Bidding optimizations Google makes on your behalf would therefore be based on incomplete or inaccurate data and could lead to poor results. 

Invoca Makes It Easy to Use Google Ads Data-Driven Attribution With Phone Call Conversions 

Google Ads doesn’t provide accurate data on phone call conversions natively the way it does online conversions. For that, advertisers should use a conversation intelligence solution like Invoca. 

Invoca provides a complete solution for attributing and analyzing phone call conversions from Google Ads and other marketing channels, making it easy for advertisers to get the right data on calls in their Google Ads accounts for use with DDA. The Invoca conversation intelligence solution for Google Ads includes:

• 100% Attribution for Google Ads Calls: For every call from Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Display, and YouTube), Invoca attributes the ad and campaign that drove it. For calls from Search ads, Invoca also accurately attributes the keyword, regardless of whether the call came from a call extension, call-only ad, location extension, or website visit after an ad click.

• Intelligence on Conversion Outcome and Value: Invoca automatically analyzes the conversation between the caller and your business in real time to measure the signals that matter to you, including call intent, product/service interest, and conversion outcome. For every call, Invoca accurately detects if it matches your business’s specific definition of a conversion (room booked, event tickets purchased, etc.) and can assign a revenue value to the call based on its value to your business.
• Conversion and Revenue Matchback: If you have a CRM or lead management system, Invoca can also ingest data on the call’s lead stage or conversion outcome along with any revenue it generated for your business, matching that data to the caller and ad/keyword that drove the call.

• Real-Time Google Ads Integration: Finally, Invoca activates accurate data on the volume and value of your phone call conversions in Google Ads in real time. That data can be used with DDA for accurate reporting and insights, and you can include phone call conversions captured by Invoca in Google Ads smart bidding with confidence, knowing that you have the best data on calls to drive the best results.

See how Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts uses Invoca conversation intelligence to get a full picture of its ROAS and optimize campaigns.

Get Started Using DDA for Phone Call Conversions

For Invoca customers, switching to DDA is easy. If you are already passing phone call conversion data from your Invoca account to Google Ads, simply log into the Invoca platform, go to your Google Ads configuration page, and select “Data-Driven” from the Attribution Model dropdown list. Be sure to check the “Include in Automated Bidding” box to include that conversion in smart bidding. 

If you aren’t currently using Invoca but would like to see the platform, schedule a personalized demo and we’ll show you how it works.