What is Data-Driven Attribution?

If you have a Google Ads account, you might’ve seen a recent email from Google saying your conversion tracking will be automatically switched to data attribution. Now you might be wondering “what is data-driven attribution?” We’re here to explain.

As we get closer to switching completely over to GA4, Google is strongly recommending everyone start using their new conversion attribution model. Previously, we’ve mainly used the Last Click attribution model, which gave all the credit for a conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword/campaign. With Data-Drive-Attribution (DDA), the credit is distributed based on the different channels a person used to come to conversion. 

Example:

A customer finds your site by clicking on your ads after performing each of these searches: “keyword 1” and “keyword 2”. She completes a form fill after clicking on your ad that appeared with “keyword 2”.

• In the “Last click” attribution model, the last keyword, “keyword 2” would receive 100% of the credit for the conversion.
• In the “Data-driven” attribution model, each keyword would receive part of the credit (50/50 in this case). If both keywords were under Campaign A, that campaign would show 1 conversion for this interaction. If “keyword 1” was under Campaign A and “keyword 2” was under Campaign B, each campaign would show .5 conversions for this interaction.

If your account sees less than 30 conversions per month, it’s likely the change won’t affect your reporting. With more than 30, you’re likely to see partial credit being assigned. In addition, once the full switch is made to GA4 for reporting, other channels (ie: organic, paid, referral, direct, etc.) will also begin getting partial credit. 

Read More: GA4 – What You Need to Know

Hopefully, this helped answer what is data-driven attribution, but if it hasn’t please, contact us and we will be able to answer any questions you might have!