One of the most frequent questions I get about measuring marketing is: "How do we measure the impact of our investments in brand development on the bottom line?" If you're really looking for an answer, here goes. There are ten basic ways a stronger brand creates financial value:

Clients tend to ask for my opinion on which landing page to use when linking their banner creative. Of course, my recommendation is going to be based on the campaign type (e.g., branding, direct response) and its objectives (e.g., drive leads, product awareness). I have an idea which existing Web site page will create the best user experience based on continuity of message and logic, but, more often than not, I am not in the campaign's targeted demographics.

I continue to see a number of highly intelligent business editors covering the marketing industry get fooled into running stories based on PR polls disguised as research. And when that happens, everyone in the marketing community gets hurt.

Let's face it, we all want due credit for our work. That's why marketers so eagerly embraced the death of the presumptive "last click." That mythology forced a paradigm of clear winners (the content that ultimately converted) versus losers (everything else). Today, we know that's patently untrue. Enter attribution modeling: giving credit to what happens before the conversion or sale takes place. We don't need this information to establish credit or place blame; we need data to refine our strategy and maximize each dollar we spend. So this brings us to some practical lessons on attribution modeling....