I've heard of them before. Seems like they are largely for bigger players with offline touchpoints. How do they do with online SaaS companies with sales cycles 30-90 days out and a variety of content efforts, social media, video campaigns, etc.?
Also, would I need an ad server in place to properly attribute display or can they handle that on their own?
I think you are right they are targeting large advertisers with significant spend.
It's a unique approach in that they don't need a lot of granular attribution data, but instead use higher level aggregate data. As a result it's easier to integrate with all kinds of media campaigns.
You need to be able to provide impressions over time for your early funnel ads and conversions over time for your late funnel touchpoints. They use some econometric time series techniques to analyze and estimate the impact so you can focus on whats working.
Interesting, thanks for the details. Right now I'd give anything for a dynamic attribution solution that didn't cost an arm and a leg and could be used at the level of volume a SMB deals with.
GA's attribution tools are fun to play with, but at the end of the day they are still static models that don't evolve over time as they collect data.
They've got an elegant and, as far as I know, unique modeling approach that avoids the first-touch/last-touch/path-analysis pitfalls.