Thanks

Matt Gershoff

So if there were three campaigns in your history then they will give “credit” to all of them. Sometimes it is evenly distributed, other times perhaps with some reducing percept, other times perhaps with a formula you can input.

It will take you just fifteen seconds of thinking to realize how utterly sub optimal this is. It is treading on a faith based analytics area. How do you really know which campaign / keyword / touch point deserved credit.

You can poke holes at just about all the methods quite easily (and then some of the issues outlined in the video series come into play and mess with things!).

So life is tough.

I think more tools will get better at attribution analysis, but it is only with time and with more advanced mathematical models and perhaps a hint of primary or secondary research that we will develop some degree of confidence about what we should do about this issue.

IMHO.

Rich: I have a slightly sub optimal opinion of view through metrics, it is often a case of the correlation in data being extended to imply causation. I am not sure that the causation really is there.

I know that there have been controlled studies by Agencies that show causation but I have to admit that I continue to be skeptical.

If you are measuring view throughs then I would try to do other things to ensure causation. Perhaps follow up surveys (”which of the following helped you in your decision to buy from us”) or primary market research etc.

I touched on correlations etc in this post:

Excellent Analytics Tip #12: Unsuspected Correlations Are Sweet!

-Avinash.

Let’s say everything goes right and the web analytics tool gives credit to multiple campaigns (search, direct, etc.) instead of just the last one (as many can).

How would you go about parsing out what is most valuable? Or is it as simple and vague as getting an idea of what campaigns are most valuable even if they aren’t the sole driver?

As usual, great stuff. One suggestion I would make is to call out the Google Analytics attribution point Zvika made in your post under “Act 2.” I credit you for not focusing on one tool, but I think GA is used enough to warrant a mention within your post. Not sure how many people will get to comment 11 before running to their boss to request more PPC budget, thinking a larger portion of the direct traffic is really PPC.

Also (at the risk of turning this into a Google Analytics help forum), I was unaware that the nooverride function could be set capture both first and last click. My understanding (from our Google team) is that allows you to capture first click only. It would be good to know if they have expanded on this feature.

Thanks again for the great posts.

This post is absolutely spot on.

Understanding the multiple user’s journey, cookies, where to attribute the credits etc… are all crucial things when dealing with clients using multiple online channel, particularly with affiliate marketing (deduping sales from different channel and award the sales to the correct affiliate is not an easy thing).

It just so happens that i am managing PPC channel of a particular large credit card client this week and we face some serious problem. Due to historical reason, the search channel is tagged with DoubleClick, the media side is tagged with 3rd party ad serving technology, and the client is using their own analytics tools (one for the website and one for the application process wahooo!!!).

And more often than not if you have to fill out a credit card application online, you will know that there are many fields that need to be completed hence multiple sessions is a big problem.

Well anyway, i just know this blog not long ago and already a frequent reader. (I set the cookie to be cleared every time i close firefox though :P).

Really looking forward for more posts like this!

Thanks Avinash!

Q: If a person visits my web site more than once, which referrer will the JAZreturns report show?

A: JAZreturns will track the referrer for every visit that a person makes to your site. For example, a person may be referred to your web site from a PPC advertising ad and few days later may be referred to your site from Google search engine. Both referral methods would be attributed to that person and show in the JAZreturns reports.

Though for the purposes of attributing a ‘desired action’ to a particular referrer, the very first referrer would be attributed as being the referrer for that desired action. In this example, the referrer in JAZreturns for conversion analysis purposes would be the PPC ad.

Really enjoyed your videos and the simplicity of explanations (especially on a topic that can get convoluted). Just goes to show that even with the great technologies we have at our disposal today, we still have ways to go before we solve all the measurement puzzles and paradoxes on the internet.

Once again, great post.

Cookie deletion is not the only source of attribution error. We have to remember that cookie are set on the browser (aka computer). If someone browse your site during his work hours (people do that a lot) but buy from home, if they are using two computers, attribution will be report incorrectly.

You also need to understand the difference between precision and accuracy (precision is better when doing treading analysis.) And this is a good point in favor of using Time on Site. Maybe a page with a high rate of bounce rate will report less accurately the actual time on page, but is it less precise? The answer for a page with a bounce rate of 95% is yes, but is it for a 80% bounce rate? I’m not good enough in math and statistic to evaluate this, but I think the answer is no. Tell me if I’m wrong.

There are customizations possible where if you come on multiple campaigns then you can customize your implementation to give credit to the first one and the last one [something called "utm_nooverride=1" (in the URL)].

Check that in your implementation.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to Victoria for adding a beautiful answer to your question as well.

David: I was unaware of jazreturns and just went over to their website to check things out. From the information provided there I am not sure that it is particularly different from how a web analytics tool would work (or something custom like AdWords Conversion Tracker).

Eran: Tip of the iceberg: Well said!! :)

-Avinash.

1. I really enjoyed all 5 acts and to be honest this is just the tip of the iceberg. As an example, many e-commerce websites use Affiliate Networks (and usually you use more than one affiliate network) to promote their product. At the end of the day as a business you need to pay the affiliates who sent the relevant traffic that resulted in conversion. Since you might have your own displays, SEOed the landing pages for search, used PPC, CPM and lets not forget email marketing who gets the credit? I think that Time on Site is a great metric to add to the equation.

2. With regards to the Display Ads, I think it is worth knowing that some will let you add code to the banner hence you can have your WA solution pixel there (won’t solve cookie blocking though).

3. Tagging all your online marketing channels (where applicable) not only will allow to give the website owner a more accurate view with regards to the Cost Per Visitor and save a lot of money later on but this is off topic. (Yes, SEO is also a cost if you pay someone to do that)

I look forward to see more videos.

Best

Eran

For some products, I’ve found those are big ifs. I have a client who we know is doing well out of Adwords, because we can see the drop in sales if we turn it off. But the conversions reported are way below what we know they should be (because they vanish if the campaign is paused).

We’ve concluded that this may be the kind of product where people are Googling at work, noting or emailling the URL, then booking when they get home. I’ve seen this pattern with travel sites, and I reckon that users want to talk the decision over with partner or family before they actually make a booking.

No analytics tool is going to be able to trace that through: they aren’t even going to be able to tell that’s not 2 separate unique visitors, because the only thing linking the 2 visits is the actual human being. You could maybe tag the URL, but you can’t do that for natural SE listings…

I liked the acknowledgement in this post that analytics data is fragile - but that it’s still useful and actionable!

Yet again you have presented something hard in a very easy to understand manner. Thank you.