Choosing a Conversion Attribution Model

1. What is a Conversion Attribution Model?
2. A Sequence Of Events
3. The Four Conversion Attribution Models
4. First Click vs Last Click: Which is Right For Me?

What is a Conversion Attribution Model?

Deciding which traffic source gets credit for a conversion event on your website is called conversion attribution.

Improvely offers multiple choices for the rules that determine which source gets credit for a conversion, called attribution models.

You can choose a conversion attribution model for each of your projects on the Conversion Settings tab of the project’s settings page.

A Sequence Of Events

To understand conversion attribution and the four options available to you, this article will refer to the following sequence of events that may occur on a website:

1. On January 1st, John performs a Google search that leads him to visiting your website by clicking a non-paid search result.

2. On January 2nd, John performs a Google search and clicks a Google AdWords advertisement you placed on this search result, returning to your website.

3. On January 3rd, John sees a banner advertisement for your website and clicks it, returning to your website a third time.

4. On January 4th, John uses a bookmark to return to your website a fourth time.

5. On January 4th, John purchases a product on your website, generating a conversion for your “purchase” conversion goal.

All five of these events are recorded by Improvely and connected to John’s activity profile in your Improvely data.

The Four Conversion Attribution Models

• First Click: Under this attribution model, a conversion will be credited to the first traffic source that brought the visitor to your website.

  John’s purchase would be credited to the non-paid Google search that brought him to your website on January 1st.

  The conversion would appear in the search traffic tab of your Dashboard, and in the row of your Search Traffic report corresponding to Google.

• First Ad Click: Under this attribution model, a conversion will be credited to the first ad click that brought the visitor to your website, if there was one.

  John clicked two ads before making his purchase: the Google ad on January 2nd and the banner ad on January 3rd. The Google ad will be credited with this purchase.

  The conversion would appear in the ad traffic tab of your Dashboard, and in the row of your Ad Traffic report corresponding to Google.

  Had John not clicked any ads, the conversion would have been credited to the non-paid Google search as the earliest click.

• Last Click: Under this attribution model, a conversion will be credited to the most recent traffic source that brought the visitor to your website.

  John’s purchase would be credited to the bookmark that brought him to your website on January 4th.

  The conversion would appear in the organic traffic tab of your Dashboard, and in the row of your Organic Traffic report corresponding to Direct Visits / Bookmarks.

• Last Ad Click: Under this attribution model, a conversion will be credited to the most recent ad click that brought the visitor to your website, if there was one.

  John clicked two ads before making his purchase: the Google ad on January 2nd and the banner ad on January 3rd. The banner ad will be credited with this purchase.

  The conversion would appear in the ad traffic tab of your Dashboard, and in the row of your Ad Traffic report corresponding to your banner ad.

  Had John not clicked any ads, the conversion would have been credited to the bookmark as his most recent click.

First Click vs Last Click: Which is Right For Me?

Because Improvely keeps track of all the visits from each person on your website, it can offer great insight into how different channels interact to bring new people to your website and bring them back again afterwards. Choosing an attribution model is important to making decisions about your traffic acquisition and marketing campaigns.

For most organizations, we recommend the default First Ad Click model, because it allows you to best identify what traffic sources are bringing in new leads or customers, and to measure the impact and ROI of your paid marketing campaigns most effectively.

If you have a good handle on what traffic sources are bringing in new customers but want to measure re-acquisition efforts, like e-mail campaigns to previous customers or remarketing ads, then Last Click may better give you the information you need.

Regardless of which attribution model you choose, you can always see every past visit from a converted lead or customer by viewing their profile in the People Explorer tool, or by reading the New Conversion notification e-mails Improvely sends you.

More from this category

• Using the Website Code
• Using the Conversion Code
• Using the Visitor Labeling Code
• White-Label Settings
• Reset Project Data
• Delete a Project
• Choosing Your Project Settings
• Choosing a Conversion Counting Setting
• Using the Duplicate Conversion Filter
• Setting Up Click Fraud Alerts
• Excluding IP Addresses From Tracking