Various Reasons Why Last-Click Attribution Is Killing Your PPC Performance

Are you finding yourself frustrated by the shortage of results when you try new automation? Whether it is Google’s Smart Bidding or some of your creation with the use of a script or macro in a spreadsheet? Don’t worry. You are not alone.

When engines disclose amazing performance from their recent automatic account management system is the right circumstances for automation to shine. For effective automation, you need to meet some prerequisite conditions.

Attribution can be considered as a negative concept for the understanding of retailers in e-commerce. In short, an attribution model defines the rules for determining the credit for conversions and sales. These are designated as matchpoints in the changeover path.

Matchpoints can differ from social media to email, PPC and SEO. But overall, it is compulsory for advertisers to study how each of the channels supports and relates to each other throughout the journey of the shoppers.   

Google’s Machine Learning Attribution Models

Google has many attribution models such as-

  • Last AdWords Click attribution model
  • First Click attribution model
  • Linear attribution model
  • Time Decay attribution model
  • Position Based attribution model
  • Data-Driven model

Attribution models must have the capacity of reflecting typical consumer journeys. Unless and until a consumer is having a strong brand loyalty, there is a quite possible chance that he/she will do plentiful research before purchasing something. These several touchpoints is what’s termed as their customer journey.

You can rely on the human sensibilities to not remove the earlier searches which are more generic in nature. Even though these users might turn up in Google ads having driven as no conversions. 

Human Foolproof for Bad Data Attribution

With the passing of time, PPC is becoming more automatic day by day. You might now decide to test on smart bidding which is set by Google’s CPC on the basis of the CPA target goal. You might also use an approach which is rules-based in order to detect expensive keywords that are not conversions driven.

The problem lies as most of the automation applies conversion data to perform their job. For you and me this will result in bad. But we cannot put the entire blame on the automation. The automation is performing its job. But with incomplete information making superb decisions is next to impossible for humans.

Three important things to jot down:

  1. Automations still need help from humans.
  2. Giving value for conversions is mattered more than the use of any automation.
  3. Your tasks as PPC professionals are switching from execution so as to apply the correct combination of automatic systems. This will generate great results.          

Getting Perfect Attribution from Phone Calls

Though Google has a few impressive methods it cannot attribute everything. Google analytics and bid management methods have no difficulty in tracking clicks. Actually, they were not created to study and understand the outcome when someone picks up the phone.  

For attributing conversations over the phone, a call intelligence solution Invoca serves the best. With the advancement of attribution models, Invoca is also becoming more advanced. Invoca users will now the option to specify attribution for effective data capture and phone calls association.

Ending Note

The confusion regarding which model to use is totally up to you. But as of now, I will suggest you use the time-decay model as your first choice if you are unsure about which model to pick up. Time-decay almost resembles the last-click with added benefits. It assigns with at least little value for each and every stage in the journey of a customer.

Digital marketing will keep on evolving at a great pace in the coming future as machine learning and AI are commoditized. Like many other advancements and algorithm changes, the end of last-click attribution might be annoying. But in the end, it will make you an expert at what you are doing.