Once you’ve decided on which attribution model to use, select the “Attribution model” setting when implementing tracking for each conversion action. This can be done with both website or Google Analytics conversion actions.
Why is marketing attribution important?
Multi-touch attribution is marketing attribution that takes into account these multiple touchpoints. And you use attribution modeling to choose how you’d prefer to weigh those many actions towards counting to a conversion.
If you’re struggling to know which choice is best for you, do a bit of research and take inventory of your current PPC campaigns and your accounts’ specific needs.
Regardless of what your marketing goals are, your strategies are most likely costing you time, money, and resources. You don’t want to be putting all of that effort in for no return. Marketing attribution helps you avoid that by helping you to track what works and what doesn’t.
But multi-touch attribution is not as common as you might think. Take a look at the survey below:
Cons: If your account doesn’t have a ton of historical data for data-driven attribution to go off of, it can be difficult to efficiently weigh in each conversion’s touchpoints.
What is multi-touch attribution?
If you already have your conversion tracking set up and want to change what you’re currently using, follow these steps:
Alright, now it’s time to move on to one of the most important approaches to marketing attribution: multi-touch attribution!
There are two categories of attribution models: single touch and multi-touch.
Single-touch attribution models only credit the first or last touchpoint before said conversion action. The two single-touch attribution models are:
- First click: The first item that sparked the conversion gets full credit, regardless of other steps in between on the customer’s journey.
With the Assisted Conversions report, you can see the value of each channel by displaying the additional number of conversions outside of raw “last touch” conversions.
Data-driven attribution distributes credit for a conversion based on your account’s past data for said conversion action. It’s different from all other models because it uses your data to calculate the actual contribution of each interaction along the conversion path.
How to measure multi-touch attribution
You can view your multi-channel attribution data using the Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels tab.
Despite the known fact that the customer journey has so many touchpoints, only 34% of advertisers are using multi-touch as their primary attribution model. In fact, 58% don’t venture away from single-touch! Read on to learn why you may want to use multi-touch attribution in your PPC campaigns.
Linear attribution
I have been out of school for quite a while now, but the word “group project” still haunts me. There’s truly nothing worse than getting stuck doing all the work while everyone else coasts to get the same grade.
Position-based attribution
Position-based attribution uses a 40-40-20 rule to credit interactions towards a conversion. This means it gives 40% of the credit to both the first and last interactions, and 20% to the rest of the interactions in between. Position-based attribution is often also referred to as a U-shaped model.
Data-driven attribution
Today’s customer journey encompasses all kinds of channels, platforms, and devices. Do yourself a favor and get multi-touch attribution in place so you can give credit to your marketing efforts where it’s due, and get rid of what’s not working!
In order to improve the future, we must understand the past, and marketing attribution helps us do that!
Which multi-touch attribution model should I use?
Remember those marketing touchpoints I listed above? As you know, there is rarely just one marketing campaign responsible for a conversion. Multiple touchpoints are involved, which is where multi-touch attribution comes in.
Well, marketing attribution not only helps you analyze the success of your marketing efforts, but it also gives you insights into the customer journey.
I think there is one thing we can all agree on when it comes to multi-touch attribution models: there are plenty of options to choose from!
How to set your attribution model
A linear attribution model distributes the credit for a conversion evenly across all interactions along a conversion path.
- In your Google Ads account, click into the tools & settings menu, then click conversions under the measurement section.
- Select the conversion action you want to edit.
- Click edit settings.
- Click attribution model, then select from the drop-down menu.
- Hit save and done!
Capture your customer journey with multi-touch attribution
There is, of course, no one-size-fits-all answer as to which multi-touch attribution model is best for you. So, aligning your goals with your multi-touch attribution model selection will help to clarify the perfect route for you and your customers’ journey.
