In Analytics, conversions and Ecommerce transactions are credited to the last campaign, search, or ad that referred the user when he or she converted. But what role did prior website referrals, searches, and ads play in that conversion? How much time passed between the user’s initial interest and his or her purchase?
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports answer these questions and others by showing how your marketing channels (i.e., sources of traffic to your website) work together to create sales and conversions.
Conversion paths
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e., clicks/referrals from channels) that led up to each conversion and transaction. By default, only interactions within the last 30 days are included in conversion paths, but you can adjust this time period from 1-90 days using the Lookback Window selector at the top of each report. Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels.
These channels include, but are not limited to:
- paid and organic search (on all search engines along with the specific keywords searched)
- referral sites
- affiliates
- social networks
- email newsletters
- custom campaigns that you’ve created, including offline campaigns that send traffic to vanity URLs.
What the Multi-Channel Funnels reports show
In the reports, channels are credited according to the roles they play in conversions—how often they assisted and/or completed sales and conversions. The Assisted Conversions report shows how many sales and conversions each channel initiated, assisted, and completed, along with the value of those conversions and sales.
read more: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1191180?hl=en&ref_topic=1191164
To learn how to interpret the reports, read the following articles.
- Analyze channel contribution explains the concepts in the Assisted Conversions report.
- Analyze conversion paths explains how to interpret the Top Conversion Paths, Time Lag, and Path Length reports.
- Segment conversion path data explains how to isolate and analyze specific subsets of conversion paths using Conversion Segments.
- Channel strategies describes how you can strengthen your marketing campaigns based on knowledge of your conversion funnel.
To learn more about how Multi-Channel Funnels data is collected and calculated, read About Multi-Channel Funnels data.
Attribution modeling example
A customer finds your site by clicking one of your AdWords ads. She returns one week later by clicking over from a social network. That same day, she comes back a third time via one of your email campaigns, and a few hours later, she returns again directly and makes a purchase.
Last Interaction model icon In the Last Interaction attribution model, the last touchpoint—in this case, the Direct channel—would receive 100% of the credit for the sale.
Last Non-Direct and last AdWords Click In the Last Non-Direct Click attribution model, all direct traffic is ignored, and 100% of the credit for the sale goes to the last channel that the customer clicked through from before converting—in this case, the Email channel.
Last Non-Direct and last AdWords Click In the Last AdWords Click attribution model, the last AdWords click—in this case, the first and only click to the Paid Search channel —would receive 100% of the credit for the sale.
In the First Interaction attribution model, the first touchpoint—in this case, the Paid Search channel—would receive 100% of the credit for the sale.
Linear attribution model, each touchpoint in the conversion path—in this case the Paid Search, Social Network, Email, and Direct channels—would share equal credit (25% each) for the sale.
In the Time Decay attribution model, the touchpoints closest in time to the sale or conversion get most of the credit. In this particular sale, the Direct and Email channels would receive the most credit because the customer interacted with them within a few hours of conversion. The Social Network channel would receive less credit than either the Direct or Email channels. Since the Paid Search interaction occurred one week earlier, this channel would receive significantly less credit.
In the Position Based attribution model, 40% credit is assigned to each the first and last interaction, and the remaining 20% credit is distributed evenly to the middle interactions. In this example, the Paid Search and Direct channels would each receive 40% credit, while the Social Network and Email channels would each receive 10% credit.