Describe a practical way to measure cross-channel promotional return on investment (ROI).

• A. ROI is simply total revenue divided by cost, ignoring touchpoints.
• B. ROI cannot be measured in cross-channel promotions.
• C. Use a single-click attribution from the last interaction only.
• D. They use a multi-touch attribution model to assign value to touchpoints, compute incremental revenue attributable to a campaign, and compare to total campaign cost.

Answer: (D)

Cross-channel ROI measurement hinges on attributing value across multiple customer touchpoints and isolating the campaign’s incremental impact. In practice, you use a multi-touch attribution model to assign credit to each interaction along the buyer’s journey across channels (email, social, search, in-store, etc.). This avoids over- or under-crediting any single point of contact and reflects how different channels contribute to the eventual purchase.

Once you’ve allocated credit, you estimate the incremental revenue attributable to the campaign—essentially what revenue would not have happened without the promotion. This often involves experiments, controlled tests, or data-driven modeling to separate the campaign’s lift from normal buying patterns. With the incremental revenue in hand, you compare it to the total campaign cost to compute ROI.

Why this works better than the other options: a simple revenue divided by cost ignores the influence of multiple touchpoints and can mislead budget decisions; claiming ROI cannot be measured in cross-channel promotions isn’t true because attribution and incremental impact analyses provide the method; relying on a single-last-click attribution ignores the contribution of earlier or concurrent touchpoints across channels. The multi-touch attribution approach captures the full spectrum of customer interactions and ties them to measurable incremental results, giving a realistic view of cross-channel promotional ROI.