What is an Attribution Model

Google Ads extension has a lot of potential to enhance your search ads for online marketing. They create further details about your business and therefore make your ads easily noticeable and appealing to prospects. You should provide such aspects as the phone numbers, the website references and the prices – so users can quickly find out the necessary information. This in turn can contribute to increased CTR – that is, more people will click on the ad and go to your website. The CTR also has the potential of raising the Quality Score and consequently leads to lower cost per click and making your campaign more rewarding (high ROI).

Google Ads offers several attribution models to help you understand how your ads contribute to conversions. Let’s break down each model:

1. First-Click Attribution

This model awards all credit to the first ad clicked in the path chosen by the customer. Ideal for businesses focused on brand awareness and discovery, as it credits the initial touchpoint.  

It is not very complex and can therefore be easily compromised and may not fully capture the values of your advertising campaigns.

2. Last-Click Attribution

This model attributes all the conversions to the final ad that a consumer clicked on before converting. Best for simple customer journeys, like e-commerce, where the final click leads directly to a purchase.

Although it is quite simple, it can lead to missing the decisions made earlier before the customer chose to do business with the company.

3. Linear Attribution

This model gives credit to all interactions of ads within a given time span and partitions the credit equally. Good for businesses with longer sales cycles and multiple touchpoints, as it distributes credit equally among all interactions.

It gives a many-sided view, but it is not precise enough to describe how different touchpoints may affect a client.

4. Time-Decay Attribution

This model attributes more credit to those ad interactions that are nearly the conversion. Best for shorter sales cycles with multiple touchpoints, as it gives more credit to recent interactions.

It considers the timeliness of the interactions while can be insensitive to the first engagement.

5. Position-Based Attribution

This model provides more credit to initial and final interactions while providing equal weight to intermediate interactions.  Suitable for a mix of branding and direct response campaigns, sharing credit between the first and last interactions.

It is better than first click and last-click models but that does not mean that the results obtained by it are always correct.

6. Data-Driven Attribution

This is the model most recommended by Google. Instead, it employs big data to process your past data and attributes value to interactions based on actual conversion values.  The most advanced model, ideal for complex customer journeys and businesses with abundant data. It uses machine learning to accurately assign credit to each touchpoint. It affords the best view of how your ad is performing in the market.

Google Ads attribution models help you understand how your ads contribute to conversions. The best model for you depends on your marketing goals, the complexity of your customer journey, and your industry.

The Data-Driven approach is a great choice if you have complicated client journeys with several touchpoints. It appropriately gives credit to every ad interaction by analyzing your past data using machine learning. The Last Click model could be enough for easier campaigns.

Selecting a model that enables you to precisely gauge the success of your campaigns and make data-driven choices to enhance your marketing initiatives is the final goal.