Word of mouth advertising is notoriously hard to track and quantify, which is a serious problem for companies and their ad agencies, but there’s no doubt that it can spread from individuals to the web in a variety of ways. Once an interested person enters the “conversion funnel” by finding your website via search engine, interacting with email newsletters, social media content, display ads or promotional links (QR codes, etc.) then attribution modeling can kick in and you can try to figure out what paths people are following to get to your website and ultimately to convert as a sale or lead. That unfortunately leaves out the word of mouth referrals and what I like to call the “dreaming” stage before or at the beginning of the conversion funnel where someone begins to think about and research the field of possibilities that can fulfill their goals, whether that’s finding a travel destination, a new recreational activity, a community or some product to meet a need or desire or any countless number of things.
