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Allocating budget optimally to marketing channels is an increasingly difficult venture. This difficulty is compounded by an increase in the number of marketing channels, a rise in siloed data between marketing technologies, and a decrease in individually identifiable data due to legislated privacy policies. The authors explore the rich attribution modeling literature and discuss the different model types and approaches previously used by practitioners and researchers. They also investigate the changing landscape of marketing attribution, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different data handling approaches (i.e., aggregate vs. individualistic data), and present a research agenda for future attribution research.

This paper aims to develop a link between word-of-mouth and attribution of credit or blame following a purchase. Attribution is important because it can affect repurchase behavior, loyalty and word-of-mouth; therefore, understanding who receives credit or blame for a purchase outcome following a product recommendation is critical.

Through three studies, how recommendation context affects attribution of credit or blame to consumers, reviewers and retailers is experimentally examined. These studies test the thesis that context factors that are independent of the product recommendation can affect how consumers assign responsibility for the product’s performance.

Results demonstrate that while consumers trust online reviews, the addition of reviewer incentives diminish that trust, especially when a consumer identifies with the retailer. Findings show support for retailers using online reviews and provide evidence for using caution when incentivizing reviewers.

This study makes a theoretical connection between word-of-mouth (reviews) and attribution. As this connection is not seen often in the literature, future research should look at the role the recommender plays in the purchasing process. This study forced participants to attribute a purchase success/failure to certain parties to find a baseline with which to begin. Future studies should look at this process as more spontaneous. It may not always occur or possibly only occur for certain types of purchases or experiences.

Retailers should be continuing to use online reviews as they provide protection from blame and an increase in credit for successful outcomes. This study also provides evidence that incorporating social media into online reviews as many sites have been doing may actually backfire. While it might be more helpful to the consumer, it can increase blame to the retailer. Reviewers are receiving incentives more frequently, and this study finds that loyal consumers should not be shown incentivized reviews as it heightens blame after a negative outcome.

While attribution has been found to be an important part of the purchasing process, it has not been looked at in relationship to word-of-mouth/electronic word-of-mouth (offline/online reviews). Knowing that who recommends a product to us impacts post-purchase behavior is important, as online reviews are utilized more frequently. Many social media strategies have been implemented without information as to how the retailer themselves will be impacted. This study provides evidence of how to better utilize online reviews.

Though online reviews have been studied widely, less is known about how reviews and product recommendations affect attribution of credit or blame for a post-purchase outcome. The theoretical link between word-of-mouth and product outcome attribution provided here will help guide future research in this area.

This paper aims to determine whether intentionality attributions have an effect on the customer’s complaint and switching behavior after a service failure, after accounting for the effects of the traditional dimensions of attribution (stability and controllability), and to examine whether intentionality attributions give rise to humiliation and to what degree this negative emotion enables us to understand the customer’s complaint and switching behavior after a service failure.

A contribution of this investigation is that it studies real complaint and switching behaviors, as the few studies that focus on understanding customers’ complaint and defection behaviors mostly analyze customers’ intentions.

The results of the study indicate that intentionality attributions have an effect on the customer’s switching behavior after a service failure, in addition to the impact of the traditional dimensions of attribution. The findings also show that humiliation is the emotion that mediates the relationship between intentionality attributions and switching behavior, opposite to other emotions that may also be related to attributions. Finally, the results also support that the effect of attribution of intentionality on complaint behavior is indirect; it only exists because attribution of intentionality influences negative emotions like humiliation, which in turn influences complaint behavior.

To understand what makes customers complain after a service failure or switch service providers without giving them first the possibility of recovering the failure may help managers reduce the damage caused by the failure and increase the company’s profits.

This study will try to contribute to the service failure research by analyzing the role of two variables that have not been analyzed before in this context: intentionality attribution and humiliation.

Customer complaints and service recovery via virtual customer service channels (VCSCs) present unique recovery situations unlike those commonly found in traditional complaint handling channels. Some of these distinct challenges include the presence of multiple customers during a recovery, which creates the possibility for uncivil customer-to-customer (C2C) exchanges to harm a complainant’s experience. To this end, this paper aims to explore customer- and firm-level aspects as they relate to social media complaint handling. A customer-level moderator (attitude toward complaining) and a firm-level moderator (relative promptness of the response) are examined.

Data from three studies use partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze hypothetical failure and complaining scenarios on VCSCs. Study 1A (a firm’s social media channel) and Study 1B (a firm’s online support community) investigate how a complainant’s predisposition toward complaining ultimately influences their experiential value (hedonic, pragmatic and sociability) during a virtual service recovery that includes uncivil communication from another customer. Study 2 further examines how the relative promptness of a service provider’s response either before or after uncivil C2C interactions hinders a complainant’s experiential value during the service recovery encounter.

The results show support for the influence of attitude toward complaining and the relative promptness of response as impactful to a complainant’s hedonic, pragmatic and social experience in virtual service encounters that involve one customer rudely interjecting into a complainant’s online service recovery encounter.

This research is one of the first to apply both customer- and firm-level moderating aspects associated with virtual service recovery encounters. The studies quantitatively assess the moderators’ influence on online dysfunctional behavior’s relationship with C2C fairness perceptions, and the subsequent experiential value a complainant receives on VCSCs. In particular, the investigation of relative promptness of a service provider’s response is a unique conceptualization that expands prior recovery studies’ focus on promptness or quickness of a recovery. The authors put forth a more prompt response that benefits the firm by purposively and symbolically closing out the encounter on VCSC, which somewhat reduces the negative effects of rude follow-up comments. This study is also novel because of the experiential focus on C2C interactions during recovery, rather than focusing on how a firm resolves a failure. In addition, this is the first service recovery study to assess multiple types of online customer service channels. Implications are put forth for service recovery theory and managers who attend to customer complaints on virtual channels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences in consumers' attributions of blame for service failures and its affect on their expectations for recovery in both online and offline settings.

A sample of non‐student adults participated in a 2 (service type) by 2 (shopping medium) experimental design testing the affects of on‐ and offline shopping on consumers' attributions of blame for a service failure. Specifically, regression is employed to test the effects of on/offline medium on blame and expected service failure recovery in both the airline and banking industries.

Empirical support is found for the hypotheses that online subjects blame themselves more for service failures, and, in turn, expect less of a recovery than offline consumers. The on/offline medium is shown to have a mediated effect on expected service failure recovery through blame in the airline data. In the bank data, on/offline medium has a significant affect on blame, and blame has a significant affect on expected service failure recovery, though on/offline medium does not show a mediated affect on expected service failure recovery.

Because online customers tend to blame themselves more for service failures, managers may be able to offer less of service failure recovery online than offline. Furthermore, online customers may be more willing to recover for themselves, thereby saving the firm money and placing customers more in control of their service experience.

This study allows for the possibility of consumers' blaming themselves for service failures and, to our knowledge, this is the first study to examine how attribution for service failure affects expected service failure recovery in both on‐ and offline settings. Managers should find our results useful in developing service failure recovery strategies.

This study identifies a new type of advertising, sponsored ad forwarding, in microblog contexts. It tests the effectiveness of designs of a message with an ad with regard to receivers who are purely online friends or offline friends.

In the main experiment, a three-by-two experimental design was employed. By random assignment, message senders forwarded an ad with either an other-oriented or a self-oriented message to a group of offline friends or purely online friends. In the control group, there was no message accompanying the ad. The data of 218 effective sender-receiver dyads were collected and compared.

The results show that a message with an other-oriented appeal is more effective than one with a self-oriented appeal for dyads with an offline relationship, and a message with a self-oriented appeal is more effective than one with an other-oriented appeal for dyads with a purely online relationship. Overall, the use of appeals significantly boosts ad effectiveness.

This study identifies a new type of marketing practice in social media, namely sponsored ad forwarding. It also proposes appeal orientation as a novel type of message content design. It shows how to apply the right appeal orientation to the right receiver groups, that is, offline or purely online friends.

Understanding leadership in newly created online social spaces, such Facebook communities, is an important new area of study within leadership research. This study explores an existing leadership model in offline environments by analyzing leadership strategies used by Facebook community leaders.

By using both quantitative and qualitative methods, data were collected through a survey from 94 Facebook community leaders about their leadership strategies.

Findings show that the framework of leadership behavior in offline groups can also be observed in Facebook communities. The content analysis of the open-ended questions reveals new categories reflecting unique leadership strategies in online environments. Leaders that participated in the study focused on strategies of content and team management, provided their groups with relevant content and personal stories to engage their members and strived to lead both offline and online-related social spaces to build a sense of community.

The growing number of Facebook community leaders and their key role in social media communities raise new questions about their position in light of what is already known about traditional leadership. Since social media occupies a central place in almost every aspect in everyday life, understanding the way that leaders manage these online communities is ever more important, and it can lead to an advancement in online communications.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2020-0034.

This article aims to further discussion on viable methods for marketing measurement that account for the complete customer journey by exploring common technology and communication barriers and solutions.

Extensive industry experience with technical and business methods, referenced in cited case studies, and research on available methods of tracking, also cited, informed the analysis contained within the article. The article is intended as a jumping off point for further conversation and debate.

Internal (author informed) case studies, and current industry offerings reveal that extant technology and standard business practices prevent the development of a total value model of marketing measurement. These barriers must be corrected before a complete picture of media efforts can be realized.

A total value model of marketing will require correcting for extant insufficient technology, and coordinating data and knowledge integration between business departments, to facilitate analysis of both online and offline marketing, and discern the value of individual media along the customer journey that lead to sales.

This article consolidates and pinpoints the crucial barriers to a method of marketing measurement that reveals online and offline media value along the entire customer journey. It offers solutions, for C‐level executives and marketers, to these barriers, and suggests that the most critical factor is internal business knowledge and practices.

Negative customer-to-customer interactions (NCCI) occurring in physical service encounters can have a detrimental effect on a focal customer’s experience. This paper aims to explore how the interplay between the physical servicescape and the presence and behavior of other customers can lead to NCCI. Moreover, through an examination of customers’ responsibility attribution, the paper underlines the need for service organizations to manage this interplay.

The authors rely on a mixed approach with two studies grounded in the Stimulus–Organism–Response paradigm. In a preliminary quantitative study, the authors test a model of the effects of NCCI on customers’ attribution and behavioral outcomes using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Next, in a qualitative study, they collect and explore NCCI incidents in eight service industries relying on the critical incident technique (CIT).

When experiencing NCCI, customers attribute at least partial responsibility for their negative experience to the service provider. The findings of the CIT study reveal three interplay mechanisms leading to NCCI: when other customers’ behavior is triggered by the physical servicescape; when other customers’ behavior is incongruent with the behavioral norms set by the physical servicescape; and when the physical servicescape is altered by other customers’ misbehavior.

This paper provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, understanding of the interplay between the physical and social servicescape, focusing on the presence and behavior of the other customers and its effect on the customer experience.