Judging from our webinar poll results, the challenges of marketing attribution continue to plague digital and traditional marketers alike. The state of digital has created a disconnect whereby customer experience is a top priority, yet very few have an advanced understanding of their user journey. In this week’s webinar, Google and Cardinal Path joined forces to explore the state of marketing attribution and share best practices for advancing your campaign measurement beyond “last-click.” We closed with an engaging Q & A session with some great questions raised. Read on for responses from our attribution thought leaders.
Please keep in mind that Attribution 360 and Attribution (free) have not been released yet and the product may still change before launch.
Q: What’s the difference between the Data Driven Attribution in Google Analytics 360 and these other attribution products? What should I use going forward if I have GA360?
A: Google Analytics’ attribution capabilities are a really good stepping stone to using a standalone attribution platform. There’s no reason not to leverage those capabilities and we would encourage those of you who have Google Analytics 360 to look at those attribution solutions and apply them in your decision making and contrast them with the other approaches that you use today.
From a product perspective, Google is making a large push in the direction of giving attribution its own product offering. What that means in the long run is that most of the innovation and most of the power that Google has, from an engineering perspective, will flow into the Google Attribution product. Long term, that’s the direction the products will take.
But if someone who uses a last-click attribution model wants to look at data-driven attribution in Analytics, that’s an absolutely valuable and worthwhile step to take, knowing that it doesn’t stop there and should continue to evolve.
There are already a couple of differences between the two products, largely based around data availability.
Q: When will it be available?
A: General release is expected through 2018.
Q: Will the device-graph (cross-device) data be available in the free version of Attribution?
A: Yes
Q: Will the free version of attribution be available for all Google Analytics clients or just Premium clients?
A: Attribution (free) is available to everyone. And to further clarify the availability of Google Attribution 360 – while it is paid, that also works with the free Analytics product as part of the stack.
Q: What’s the best case study you’ve seen in terms of results after implementing an attribution platform?
A: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2017/05/solving-enterprise-attribution-challenge.html
Q: How much does Attribution 360 cost?
A: The costs for Attribution 360 start at $10K per month for up to 50M impressions, with higher tiers available. Pricing is simple – there are no overage charges. Customers that sign up during the beta period are eligible for a six month free trial.
Q: With the launch of Attribution 360, does Google have plans to deprecate the attribution features already in Google Analytics 360?
A: Overall, these are long term items that Google is thinking about. Yes, full force will be behind Google Attribution and that means that most of the updates, most of the innovation, will go into that product. So we would encourage everyone to start taking advantage of the Google Attribution free product, as aggressively as possible, with the current phasing and the availability of it. Nothing goes away in the near term. It can be expected that you will be prompted in Google Analytics to try out the Google Attribution product and that’s an indicator to show where the biggest business value is and where the best possible place is for our advertisers in terms of making decisions on their media spend.
Q: Are we talking about Universal Analytics Apps SDK or Firebase Analytics?
A: Universal Analytics and Firebase Analytics are part of the Google Analytics platform, which is a part of the 360 Suite.
Attribution 360, is a separate product in the 360 Suite and can use Google Analytics as a source of data for its attribution calculations.
Q: Can you show us what will be available for free?
A: Attribution will collect data from Google Analytics, AdWords, DoubleClick Search, and the GDN and will provide access to the standard reports along with bidding integrations for AdWords, DoubleClick Search and DoubleClick Bid Manager.
There are many more advanced features in Attribution 360 such as: Digital Optimizer (as demo’d), 3rd party data uploads, customized configurations, more advanced reporting, and more.
Q: Can you talk in more about TV data used in the model? Is it high level spend, GRPs, RF or can you get to an agent basis through panel integration?
A: TV Attribution can be leveraged as a separate product independent of Attribution 360 and its model is not part of the digital attribution model that was shown. TV Attribution is leveraging aggregate minute-by-minute TV airing data to understand the immediate impact of TV ads on digital response metrics, such as website visits and search behavior. The plan is to include TV Attribution reports in Attribution 360 for clients who buy into the Attribution 360 platform at no additional cost, and we are currently finalizing this integration.
Q: Is there any additional implementation required for Attribution 360 apart from linking GA 360 and DCM?
A: Stay tuned for our updates around our attribution resources, including an implementation checklist.
