Introduction to Attribution metrics in Google Ads

Google Ads provide several Attribution metrics in its reports which you must get familiar with:

1. Conversions (current model) – Conversion volume under your current attribution model.
2. Cost/conv. (current model) – Cost Per Conversion under your current attribution model.
3. Conv. rate (current model) – Conversion rate under your current attribution model.
4. Conv. value (current model) – Conversion value under your current attribution model.
5. Value/conv. (current model) – value per conversion under your current attribution model.
6. Conv. value/click (current model) – Conversion Value per click under your current attribution model.
7. Conv. value/cost (current model) – Conversion value per cost under your current attribution model.

Use these metrics, if you want to test a new attribution model for a conversion action:

When you change the attribution model associated with a conversion action, it changes the way your conversions are counted in your ‘Conversions’ and ‘All conversions’ columns going forward.

So in order to test a new attribution model, you may need to wait for couple of weeks.

So that you have accumulated enough conversion data to measure the impact of your new attribution model.

However by adding the attribution metrics to your reports, you can get a good idea of, how your historical conversion data would look like with the new attribution model.

This can help you in deciding, whether or not you should continue with the new attribution model.

This is the advantage of adding attribution metrics to your reports.

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In order to test an attribution model in Google Ads, follow the steps below:

Step-1: Login to your Google Ads account with admin/full access.

Step-2: Click on the ‘Tools’ tab and then click on the ‘Conversions’ link under the ‘Measurement’ section:

Step-3: Click on the name of the conversion action whose attribution model you want to change:

You should now be able to see the attribution model currently being used by the conversion action:

Step-4: Click on the ‘Edit Settings’ link and then click on the drop down menu in the ‘attribution modelling’ row:

Step-5: Select the attribution model you want to use from the drop down menu and then click on the ‘Save’ button:

Let us suppose you changed your attribution model from ‘Last click’ to ‘Data Driven’.

You want to test the ‘Data Driven’ attribution model.

You want to see, how using this model will affect the conversion data.

Step-6: Navigate back to your reports and then click on the ‘Campaigns’ tab:

Step-7: Click on the ‘Columns’ button and then select ‘Modify Columns’ from the drop down menu:

Step-8: Click on the ‘Conversions’ link:

Step-9: Select the conversion metrics as shown below:

Step-10: Click on the ‘Attribution’ link:

Step-11: Select all the attribution metrics and then click on the ‘Apply’ button:

Step-12: Compare the regular ‘conversion’ metrics with the ‘attribution’ metrics, to see how your data would have changed if you had been using the attribution model you’ve now selected.

For example, compare ‘conversions’ column with ‘conversions (current model)’:

Similarly, compare ‘cost/conv.’ column with with ‘Cost / Conv. (current model)’.

Note: All the ‘Attribution’ metrics columns do not include any conversion actions that you have chosen not to include in conversions. However they do include ‘cross device conversions’ and all the data (like data from the Google display network) that is independent of the attribution model being used.

As such, a traditional MMM model is not suitable for carrying out digital marketing mix modelling aka attribution modelling.

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