This is despite the fact that a majority of respondents were aware of the benefits of using digital technology to track their marketing spend.

The findings come from the new State of Marketing Attribution in Asia Pacific Report, which is based on a survey of more than 400 APAC respondents.

Here’s an overview of three key trends from the report…

Lack of knowledge holds back marketers

Though marketers in the APAC region recognise the opportunity behind attribution, for many this is not translating into action.

For example, though 71% of companies agree that multi-device behaviour has increased the focus on attribution, two-thirds of company respondents (66%) do not carry out any form of marketing attribution beyond basic last-click analysis.

Lack of knowledge is the main barrier to implementing a more advanced attribution model, followed by lack of time and technology limitations.

What are the reasons you or your clients don’t carry out marketing attribution or have delayed its implementation?

Custom modelling is the most effective attribution model

As marketers try to track the entire customer journey and assess the influence of multiple devices and channels, basic attribution models have become less relevant as they fail to take into account the complexity of journeys or the amount of data available.

Despite this, first touch or click remains the most commonly-used model beyond last-click.

According to the research, first touch is used by almost half (47%) of companies who carry out some kind of marketing attribution modelling beyond last-click.

However, this research is encouraging in that custom modelling is shown to be the most popular method after first and last-click, used by 39% and 49% of companies and agency clients respectively.

This form of modelling is viewed as significantly more effective than other models: 41% said it was very effective compared to only 15% that said the same of first touch or click.

Turning attribution insights into action is the final hurdle

Though the argument for attribution is won, and the value of it recognised by marketers, this report shows that 44% of companies agree to some extent that the insights they gain from attribution are not ‘actioned’.

‘We don’t action the insights we get from attribution’

This highlights one of the fundamental problems with so-called ‘big data’ – how do you turn all that data into insights that can be used to benefit the business?

In fact, turning data into insights is the third biggest barrier to effective attribution according to survey respondents, with other challenges relating to disparate tech/data and data complexity most likely compounding the problem.

Download the full report for more in-depth analysis.