Data & Tech

Google’s saying bye to last-click attribution

The new “default” attribution model uses “advanced machine learning,” the company said.
article cover

Francis Scialabba

· less than 3 min read

Get marketing news you'll actually want to read

Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.

Google is giving all advertisers access to an AI-driven tool that helps them see what led someone to buy something.

Huh? Announced last week, Google is replacing last-click attribution as the default setting for advertisers measuring campaigns across search, shopping, display, and YouTube ads with data-driven attribution, which uses machine learning to give credit to all of the ads that led someone to make a purchase, not just the final one.

No limit: Previously, data-driven attribution was limited to advertisers that had hit a certain threshold on Google Ads: at least 3,000 ad interactions and 300 conversions within 30 days, according to Google spokesperson Jackie Berté.

If an advertiser doesn’t want to rely on DDA (that’s just easier now, isn’t it?), they can turn it off and rely instead on five other attribution methods, including last-click.

Ye old click: Last-click attribution is a “very simplistic” way of measuring advertisements, Ana Milicevic, digital marketing consultant and cofounder of Sparrow Advisors, told Marketing Brew. With last-click attribution, the last ad a user clicked on gets full credit for the purchase they ultimately make. But, that’s not really how most people shop or even use the internet.

  • A user might search for Nike sneakers three times before making a purchase, browsing reviews and seeing ads in between, so the credit can’t solely go to one advertisement.

“A lot of the marketing efforts that were actually moving the needle would get severely undercounted in a last-click attribution scenario,” said Milicevic. With more information, a marketer can optimize media spend for whatever’s really driving a purchase, whether it be that last display ad or a promoted search one.

But, but, but: In a digital marketing environment full of walled gardens like Google, DDA is another black box that should be looked at with “skepticism,” Wayne Blodwell, founder and CEO of digital marketing consulting firm The Programmatic Advisory, told us.

“The smart brands will look at their bottom-line numbers and data-driven attribution numbers to see if they correlate. They’ll use Google numbers as a proxy, rather than the source of truth,” he said.—RB

Get marketing news you'll actually want to read

Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.