Let’s say someone clicks on a Google Ad that directs them to your client’s website. The visitor takes a look at the website but doesn’t purchase anything and closes their browser. The next day, however, that same visitor types in the company’s name from memory into Google search to find the client’s website again in order to make their first purchase.
So where did the conversion come from?
According to Google Analytics, it will say that the Goal was completed thanks to Organic Search (the most recent source). In reality, however, the visitor initially discovered the website through a paid Google Ad. That is why we have “Assisted Conversions,” which is a section of Google Analytics that details the full path that users take before completing a Goal.
One of the easiest ways you can take a look at this information is by looking at the full path users take before completing a Goal. You can find the full Goal paths in your Google Analytics side-panel by navigating to ‘Conversions’ -> ‘Multi-Channel Funnels’ -> ‘Top Conversion Paths.’ If you have access to Deftly, you can simply create a table once and you won’t have to worry about finding this section of GA again:
In our Deftly table (above), we like to include the full “source medium path” so we can look beyond the general channel (Paid, Organic, etc.) and see the actual detailed source (Google, Bing, etc.). In either case, you’ll see a list of paths that users have taken before completing the various Goals you have set up. Based on the example given earlier, it might look something like this:
Paid -> Organic
Sometimes, a user will go through the same channel twice in a row (or even more than twice). So if the user from the previous example went through Organic search twice before purchasing, it might look something more like this:
Paid -> Organic x 2
Sometimes, you might have a large variety of paths that users have taken, such that it might be overwhelming to look at the data in this manner. In that case, you can shift over to “first interaction conversions” and “last interaction conversions.” In Deftly, it’s simple enough to keep a table like this in your report:
For this example, we again wanted to see the full “source medium” and simply see where people first discovered the website, and then which channel they interacted with last before completing various Goals.
When it comes to attribution, everyone has their own feelings on which channel “should” get credit, whether it’s the first or last, or all of them divided proportionally. Before you can decide, however, the first step is to simply find and evaluate the right data, which is made very easy in Deftly’s intuitive interface. The above charts are included in our initial templates that we include when we create a free full report for you during our Free Trial.