Google Attribution to add new 'holistic' edge to Analytics

Google’s annual marketing conference, Google Marketing Next, concluded last month in San Francisco with brilliant news for marketers. The highlight of the event was the announcement of “Google Attribution,” which beckons a whole new change in the Analytics scene with the assurance of more effective lead tracking.

For the first time, marketers will get a tool designed to link online and offline user behaviour to provide holistic Analytics data to the marketer. The tool is designed to comprehend every touchpoint a lead passes through, right from the first impression of the business until they finally agree to become a customer.

Tracking leads is nothing new. Google can already determine whenever a lead clicks on ads then makes a purchase. But marketers never had the capacity to get a wholesome view of both online and in-store habits. Good thing it is now facilitated by a new tool from the search engine giant. Thanks to the holistic Analytics quotient, Google Attribution will enable marketers to best utilise their budget via reports of the most impactful touchpoints in user journeys.

Google Attribution will integrate the marketer’s attribution details with Google Analytics, AdWords and DoubleClick without additional tagging. The integration will bring together data from every marketing channel to offer a comprehensive view of the performance of the campaign. According to statements from Google senior VP Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google Attribution is the much-awaited solution that will help marketers with a long-standing dilemma: “Is my campaign actually working?"

How current Analytics platforms manage Attribution

With so many browsing devices and advertising platforms, modern users/customers interact with a business through several channels. There are apps, video ads, social media business pages, website and other avenues for customer-business interaction. But as interaction takes place across multiple devices and platforms, it becomes tougher to individually gauge the influence of each touchpoint. This is the main problem of the current Analytics platforms.

The platforms only consider the first and last touchpoints. The ones in the middle are not counted when it comes to comprehending the customer’s journey. Such a practice cannot always provide the actual picture of the campaign, leading to erroneous data on the user’s road to purchase. Naturally, marketers are never able to understand the actual ROI for middle touchpoints.

Why Google Attribution would be a better solution

Google Attribution takes to machine learning principles to gauge the sequential order of the customer’s conversion path. In simple words, it counts not only the first and last touchpoints but also each of the middle ones. Thus, the marketer will get a complete picture of the customer’s map to conversion using the new tool.

More precise idea on ROI & informed bidding

Since Google Attribution offers reports on each touchpoint, marketers will now have better knowledge of the performance of their different ads on various platforms. It will further help them with more accurate calculation of actual ROI from ads so they can make more informed biddings.

Higher credit to email nurturing and middle-funnel activities

Google Attribution is also predicted to give more weight to email lead nurturing and ad targeting practices. “Regular Analytics platforms hardly give credit to email nurturing and ad retargeting for existent leads. But as Google Attribution is designed for overall customer journey, and not just last clicks, we expect these channels would receive higher credit in near future," the CEO of leading email tracking company MailSpice stated.

More reasonable forecasts for every channel

A good understanding of CPA per channel is important in order to measure the ROI of marketing expenditure. Experts are hopeful that Google Attribution’s advanced machine-learning algorithms will be able to help with more effective calculations, which will eventually allow marketers to predict more reasonable outcomes from every channel. The tool is in the final stage of test mode and will soon be released for marketers and advertisers.