{"id":53064,"date":"2022-01-07T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/?p=53064"},"modified":"2022-01-31T16:53:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T00:53:30","slug":"reporting-on-assisted-conversions-through-google-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/blog\/analytics\/reporting-on-assisted-conversions-through-google-analytics.htm","title":{"rendered":"Reporting on Assisted Conversions Through Google Analytics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As analysts and stakeholders, we all know the importance of making sure we’re collecting the right data. However, I’ve found that we spend a disproportionate amount of time in data collection than we do in the analysis process. Further, not every business and especially not every marketing effort should be analyzed the same.<\/p>\n

When it comes to understanding the path a user took that led to a conversion, Google Analytics has many ways we can collect and attribute data to a specific action. However, not every attribution method is made readily available to us in Google Analytics.<\/p>\n

In this post, we’ll start by making sure we understand the options available to us for attribution in Google Analytics, explain assisted conversions and its caveats, and end with how you can start reporting on assisted conversions to tell a better story with your data.<\/p>\n

If you’re already familiar with attribution in GA and the pros and cons of analyzing assisted conversions, you can skip to how to set up reporting for assisted conversions in Google Data Studio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you want to learn a bit more about attribution in general before diving into this post, you can check out our Digital Marketer’s Guide to Attribution<\/a> first.<\/p>\n

How Are Conversions Attributed in Google Analytics?<\/h2>\n

Let’s start by making sure we understand how conversions are reported in Google Analytics by default. GA actually attempts to give credit to the last non-direct click, which is often preferred. However, there may be situations where we want to attribute a conversion to direct—when we know it’s a result of brand awareness, for example.<\/p>\n

It’s also important to remember that traffic is attributed to direct when a user enters a site directly but also when Google does not have the information to attribute it otherwise<\/strong>. Some examples are when a user clicks on a link in a mobile app, enters your site through an untagged email, or clicks a link in a document. Many obscure situations could lead to a user visiting your site through a non-direct avenue but have it be attributed to direct. Our analytics strategist, Jackie Jeffers, goes into more detail about identifying and analyzing “dark direct” traffic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other Attribution Models in Google Analytics<\/h2>\n

GA understands that the last non-direct model won’t work for all businesses, especially if you’re implementing multi-channel marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

Excluding the default attribution model, there are six other attribution models you can play around with in GA. You can give all of the credit to the last interaction, the last Google Ads click, or the first interaction. There are three others to split up attribution evenly among all touchpoints (linear), give more credit to every attribution that’s closer to the conversion (time decay), or split the credit evenly between the first and last interactions.<\/p>\n

Our director of analytics, Michael Wiegand, gives a more thorough breakdown of the different attribution models<\/a> that are available in GA so I won’t go into full detail here.<\/p>\n

Analyzing Assisted Conversions<\/h2>\n

There’s also the option to look at assisted conversions. Assisted conversions give credit to every single touchpoint in a user’s path—even direct. Every touchpoint in a user’s journey to a conversion is given credit as an assisted conversion except for the final source.<\/p>\n

There are situations where giving every source an equal amount of credit makes sense, such as purchases with long consideration cycles. Although, you may want to give different weight to the sources depending on its position in the converting path, especially for situations like these:<\/p>\n

In this situation, social may not deserve as much credit as referral, for example. Referral was the first interaction, and the user entered back to the site through it five additional times. There are typically hundreds of these random combinations of user paths that users end up taking before converting on your site.<\/p>\n

Or what about this example?<\/p>\n

Sure, the user entered the site three times through paid before converting, but shouldn’t the other advertising source get credit for bringing the user to the site in the first place? We want to be able to identify what source we paid for that falls under this ‘other advertising’ channel and put more money into it if it’s bringing new converting users to our site.<\/p>\n

These are reasons why I report on first interaction assisted conversions in addition to last non-direct click conversions in my reports. We don’t always need to credit every channel in a path; in many cases, we want to know how we first brought a user to our site, and what channel they ultimately took to convert.<\/p>\n

In the Multi-Channel Funnels (MCF) reports in GA, you can switch your Assisted Conversions report over to First Interaction Analysis.<\/p>\n

Take a look at this report, for example, where paid search is credited for 30% of last-click conversions but actually accounts for 38% of first-click conversions:<\/p>\n

There are over 9,000 more conversions that occur by users who we first captured through paid search, but are attributing to other channels like organic, paid social, or display. We’re even possibly pumping more money into those channels while cutting down our budget in paid search because our ROI looks worse for paid search when only looking at last-click conversions.<\/p>\n

When Should You Report on Assisted Conversions?<\/h2>\n

Reporting on assisted conversions requires a bit more time and effort, and it’s really worth it if your business meets any of the following criteria:<\/p>\n