​ VIdeo Transcript of Attribution Modeling:

Hi everyone, my name is Colton- I’m a digital marketing strategist and co-founder of Bespoke Media. I’m here to give you a crash course on attribution modeling- what it is, why you need to know about it and how to change your attribution model in 3 easy steps in Google Ads. Here’s what’s in it for you as the viewer- In 3 easy steps, you can increase your organization’s revenue by anywhere from 15-35%. How’s this possible? To understand this, first you need to understand attribution modeling, which brings us to our first question: ​ ​ ​

What is attribution modeling? ​ ​ ​

Simply put, attribution is how a channel assigns credit for important actions their site visitors take. These important actions can be conversions such as purchases, sign ups, video plays, and so on. The credit of the conversion needs to be attributed somewhere in your account- it could be assigned to a keyword, an ad, and/or a combination of the two. There are several different standard attribution models: First Click, Last Click, Linear, Time Decay and Position-Based (sometimes referred to as U-Shaped). ​

First Click: 100% of conversion is assigned to the first click of the user’s journey

Last Click: 100% of conversion is assigned to the last click of the user’s journey

Linear: % is divvied evenly between touchpoints along the user’s journey

Time Decay: % of conversion credit increases the closer to the conversion the touchpoint is

Position-Based (U-Shaped): 40% assigned to the first click, 40% assigned to the last click, and 20% assigned to any touchpoint in between ​ ​

Why is attribution modeling important to you?​

If you’re like most advertisers we’ve come across, your attribution modeling is non-dynamic and only provides a very limited window of the user’s journey to making a buying decision. Google Ads defaults all advertisers to ‘Last Click’, and that only lets us view one single touchpoint of the buyer’s journey. By changing this setting in Google Ads, you’ll be able to have a clearer understanding of your customer’s buying cycle and identify previously unknown variables that are contributing to your conversions, purchases, leads, etc. ​ Ironically, less than half of marketers today​ are using a multi-touchpoint model, and they’re paying dearly for it. ​ Because Google Ads defaults to Last Click attribution, usually this means advertisers see Branded keywords and ads getting many more conversions than their Non-Branded and Competitor counterparts. In reality, during the top funnel and information gathering phase, users are learning about the products/services around the web that they need and they’ll search for a Non-Branded or even Competitor term once, twice or several times before they remember the name of your brand towards the bottom of the funnel and they convert. Changing the attribution model provides us greater transparency in the user’s behavior throughout the funnel, and therefore we can more effectively optimize our campaigns. ​ ​

Which attribution model is best?​

That’s an empirical question that deserves you to experiment, and really depends on your business model. Don’t worry though, you can play around with different multi-touchpoint models in Google Ads and how they would have affected your performance retroactively by clicking on Tools -> Search Attribution and then Attribution Modeling. One thing is certainly clear- just using First Click or Last Click should almost never be used. ​ ​ How do I change my attribution model? ​ In 3 easy steps: 1) Log in to Google Ads and select ‘Tools’ then under Management select ‘Conversions’ 2) Select the conversion for which you’d like to make the attribution model ​ 3) Select ‘Edit Settings’ then at the bottom you’ll see ‘Attribution model’- make the change there and select ‘Save’ ​ ​ ​ ​

That’s it. Thanks for watching, best of luck and be sure to reach out if this has had a substantial impact on your account’s performance. ​ ​