Google Analytics Attribution Modeling allows you to compare how different attribution models affect conversion rates, cost per acquisition and your marketing decisions. The tool allows you to compare 7 standard attribution models. You can also define your own custom models.
Read this Google Analytics article to understand how each attribution model assigns credit for sales and conversions.
What is a an attribution model?
“An attribution model is the rule, or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touchpoints in conversion paths. For example, the Last Interaction model in Google Analytics assigns 100% credit to the final touchpoints (i.e., clicks) that immediately precede sales or conversions. In contrast, the First Interaction model assigns 100% credit to touchpoints that initiate conversion paths.” (Source: Google Analytics Attributing modeling overview)
Here’s how to compare attribution models in Google Analytics:
Google Analytics -> Conversions -> Attribution -> Model Comparison Tool
– The standard overview looks at all traffic sources. Click on “AdWords” near the top of the screen to analyse Adwords performance only.
– You can compare up to three attribution models. “Last AdWords Click” should always be one of them to be able to compare AdWords tracking to the other models.
In the example below we are comparing Last AdWords click, First Interaction and Linear.
– Click “AdWords Keyword” to analyse keyword performance based on the difference attribution models
Filter keywords with a high cost per acquisition (CPA) based on Last AdWords Click
– Click “advanced” next to the search box
– Click the dropdown, type “cpa” and select “Last AdWords Click CPA”
– Enter a value next to “Greater than” that is significantly above your target acquisition cost
– Click “Apply”
How to interpret the data in the report
The example below shows the keyword performance based on three attribution models: Last AdWords Click, First Interaction and Linear.
Last AdWords Click shows the same data that your conversion tracking in Google Adwords shows.
The first keyword in the table shows 16 sales at a cost per acquisition of €668.47 based on Last AdWords click attribution.
The same keyword shows 32 sales and a cost per acquisition of €334.23 based on First interaction attribution.
This indicates that people searching for this keyword are further away from the purchase decision, i.e. this keyword tends to be the first search query users use to find the companies website.
In other words users searching for this keyword are still in research mode. If you evaluate the performance strictly based on Last AdWords click attribution you would completely miss this fact.
