Attribution component settings
Attribution lets you customize how dimension items get credit for success events.
For example:
- A person on your site clicks a paid search link to one of your product pages. They add the product to their cart, but do not purchase it.
- The next day, they see a social media post from one of their friends. They click the link, then complete the purchase.
In some reports, you might want the order attributed to Paid search. In other reports, you might want the order attributed to Social. Attribution lets you control this aspect of reporting.
Set a component’s default attribution model
You can set a default attribution model for a given metric by updating the metric’s setting in the data view. Doing so overrides the metric’s attribution model any time it’s used in Analysis Workspace.
-
When using the component in a report with a single dimension: The component’s attribution ignores the allocation model when a non-default attribution model is used.
-
When using the component in a report with multiple dimensions: The component’s attribution retains the allocation model when a non-default attribution model is used.
Multiple dimensions are available only when exporting data to the cloud.
To update a component’s default attribution model:
-
Go to the data view that contains the component whose default attribution model you want to update.
-
Select the component, then expand the Attribution section on the right side of the screen.
-
Select Set attribution, then select the attribution model in the Attribution Model drop-down menu.
See Attribution models to learn about each attribution model.
-
Select Save and continue.
-
Copy the metric in the data view with each desired attribution setting. You can include the same metric multiple times in a data view, giving each metric a different setting. Make sure that you label each metric appropriately so that analysts understand the difference between these metrics when generating reports.
-
Override the metric in Analysis Workspace. In a metric’s Column settings, select Use non-default attribution model to change the metric’s attribution model and lookback window for that specific report.
Attribution models
An attribution model determines which dimension items get credit for a metric when multiple values are seen within a metric’s lookback window. Attribution models only apply when there are multiple dimension items set within the lookback window. If only a single dimension item is set, that dimension item gets 100% credit regardless of attribution model used.
2^(-t/halflife), where t is the amount of time between a touch point and a conversion. All touch points are then normalized to 100%. Ideal for scenarios where you want to measure attribution against a specific and significant event. The longer a conversion happens after this event, the less credit is given.
At a high level, attribution is calculated as a coalition of players to which a surplus must be equitably distributed. Each coalition’s surplus distribution is determined according to the surplus that was previously created by each subcoalition (or previously participating dimension items) recursively. For more details, see John Harsanyi’s and Lloyd Shapley’s original papers:
Shapley, Lloyd S. (1953). A value for n-person games. Contributions to the Theory of Games, 2(28), 307-317.
Harsanyi, John C. (1963). A simplified bargaining model for the n-person cooperative game. International Economic Review 4(2), 194-220.
Lookback window
A lookback window is the amount of time a conversion should look back to include touch points. If a dimension item is set outside of the lookback window, the value is not included in any attribution calculations.
- 14 Days: Looks back up to 14 days from when the conversion happened.
- 30 Days: Looks back up to 30 days from when the conversion happened.
- 60 Days: Looks back up to 60 days from when the conversion happened.
- 90 Days: Looks back up to 90 days from when the conversion happened.
- Session: Looks back up to the beginning of the session where a conversion happened. Session lookback windows respect the modified Session timeout.
- Person (Reporting Window): Looks at all visits back up to the first of the month of the current date range. For example, if the report date range is September 15 - September 30, the person lookback date range includes September 1 - September 30. If you use this lookback window, you can occasionally see that dimension items are attributed to dates outside of your reporting window.
- Custom Time: Allows you to set a custom lookback window from when a conversion happened. You can specify the number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or quarters. For example, if a conversion happened on February 20, a lookback window of five days would evaluate all dimension touchpoints from February 15 to February 20 in the attribution model.
Example
Consider the following example:
- On September 15, a person arrives to your site through a paid search advertisement, then leaves.
- On September 18, the person arrives to your site again through a social media link they got from a friend. They add several items to their cart, but do not purchase anything.
- On September 24, your marketing team sends them an email with a coupon for some of the items in their cart. They apply the coupon, but visit several other sites to see if any other coupons are available. They find another through a display ad, then ultimately make a purchase for $50.
Depending on your lookback window and attribution model, channels receive different credit. The following are some notable examples:
-
Using first touch and a session lookback window, attribution looks at only the third visit. Between email and display, email was first, so email gets 100% credit for the $50 purchase.
-
Using first touch and a person lookback window, attribution looks at all three visits. Paid search was first, so it gets 100% credit for the $50 purchase.
-
Using linear and a session lookback window, credit is divided between email and display. Both of these channels each get $25 credit.
-
Using linear and a person lookback window, credit is divided between paid search, social, email, and display. Each channel gets $12.50 credit for this purchase.
-
Using J-shaped and a person lookback window, credit is divided between paid search, social, email, and display.
- 60% credit is given to display, for $30.
- 20% credit is given to paid search, for $10.
- The remaining 20% is divided between social and email, giving $5 to each.
-
Using Time Decay and a person lookback window, credit is divided between paid search, social, email, and display. Using the default 7-day half-life:
-
Gap of zero days between display touch point and conversion.
2^(-0/7) = 1 -
Gap of zero days between email touch point and conversion.
2^(-0/7) = 1 -
Gap of six days between social touch point and conversion.
2^(-6/7) = 0.552 -
Gap of nine days between paid search touch point and conversion.
2^(-9/7) = 0.41 -
Normalizing these values results in the following:
- Display: 33.8%, getting $16.88
- Email: 33.8% getting $16.88
- Social: 18.6%, getting $9.32
- Paid Search: 13.8%, getting $6.92
-
Conversion events that typically have whole numbers are divided if credit belongs to more than one channel. For example, if two channels contribute to an order using a Linear attribution model, both channels get 0.5 of that order. These partial metrics are summed across all people then rounded to the nearest integer for reporting.