Title: Return on investment and return on ad spend at the action level of AIDA using last touch attribution method on digital advertising platforms

Authors: K.V. Sriram; Anup Ananda Poojary; Vineet Jawa; Giridhar B. Kamath

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India ' Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India ' Gaboli Online Services Private Limited, No. 07/3, 18th Main Road, Jayanagar 9th Block, Bangalore 560041, India ' Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to help marketers realise the importance of the last-click attribution model at the action level of the AIDA model on the return on investment (ROI). Marketers often rely on last-click attribution modelling and they obtain undesired results as Google ads and Facebook ads use the last-click attribution model as the default model. Being plagued with attribution-based issues, firms can end up overspending their budget because the ROI shows discouraging results and firms end up curtailing the campaigns, which further drops the conversion. This paper analyses the data from a jewellery brand's marketing campaigns to understand the effect of action level advertisements on Google ads and Facebook platforms over return on investment (ROI). In conjunction with the ROI being affected by last-touch attribution, the authors have questioned the effect of the AIDA model's last phase/level, i.e., the 'action' level's effect on ROI from the advertising platform. The findings revealed that ROI through Google ads and Facebook ads were different in the 'action' level of the AIDA using the last touch attribution model. This study contributes to the evidence of the ROI queries that the marketers have faced in the current digital marketing domain.

Keywords: return on investment; ROI; last touch attribution; last click attribution; AIDA model; action level AIDA model; Google ads; Facebook ads; ROAS; analytics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2022.125145

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2022 Vol.17 No.1/2, pp.111 - 132

Received: 20 Nov 2020
Accepted: 03 Mar 2021

Published online: 31 Aug 2022 *

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