Attribution modelling for conversions has been a part of Google Analytics and Google Ads for some years. For Google Ads advertisers, customers may interact with multiple ads from the same advertiser on the way to a conversion. Attribution models let you choose how much credit each keyword or ad interaction gets for your conversions and so provide a better understanding of performance to help optimise across conversion journeys.
Most advertisers measure the success of their online advertising on a ‘last click’ basis. This means they give all the credit for a conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword. However, this ignores the other ad interactions that customers may have had with the business along the way.
Attribution models provide more control over how much credit each ad interaction gets for your conversions. This allows you to:
Reach customers earlier in the purchase cycle: Find opportunities to influence customers earlier on their path to conversion.
Match your business: Use a model that works best for how people search for what you offer.
Improve your bidding: Optimise your bids based on a better understanding of how your ads perform.
The ‘Attribution model’ setting in Google Ads conversion tracking lets you decide how to attribute conversions for each conversion action. This setting can be used for website and Google Analytics conversion actions and affects how conversions are counted in your ‘Conversions’ and ‘All conversions’ columns.
The chosen attribution model setting only affects the conversion action to which it’s applied. It also affects any bid strategies that use the data in the ‘Conversions’ column. This means that if you use an automated bid strategy that optimises for conversions, such as target cost-per-action (target CPA), Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) or target return on ad spend (target ROAS), the attribution model you select will affect how your bids are optimised.
When trying a new non-last click attribution model, it’s recommended that the model is tested first to see how it affects your return on investment figures.
It’s useful to use the ‘Cost / conv.’ and ‘Conv. value / cost’ columns in the ‘attribution model comparison report’ to compare CPA and ROAS for different attribution models. This allows the identification of campaigns or keywords that are undervalued using the ‘last click’ attribution model.
The advantage is that bids can then be changed, based on the actual value of your campaigns and keywords across the full conversion path, rather than an undervalued one, with the aim of improving lowering the CPA and improving the ROAS.
You can read more about attribution modelling and the different types of models here. If you’re not sure what model to choose, you can learn more on the ‘attribution model comparison report‘, which compares the different attribution models.
Also if you want to know more about how attribution modelling could help to improve the ROAS for your business, please get in touch.