If you are unclear about which of your marketing tactics are working, you may want to take a closer look at AdWords attribution models. The recently released Attribution Model can give the right amount of credit to each ad, click, or keyword.
The following models are available: last click, first click, linear, time-decay, position based, and data driven. The ability to utilize these attribution models will allow you to give credit and, more importantly, know how much credit to give to each click.
Last Click:
The Last Click model is the one most familiar to advertisers. This gives the all credit to the last clicked ad and the corresponding keyword before the conversion. This is also the easiest model to apply, but it is worth noting that you may be missing crucial insights earlier in the conversion path.
First Click:
The opposite of last click. It gives all credit to the first clicked ad and corresponding keyword. Like Last Click, First Click has obvious shortcomings in understanding the conversion path.
Linear:
If first and last click are too finite – you may want to look into the linear model. Linear gives all clicks that lead to the conversion the same amount of credit.
Time-Decay:
This can offer a different perspective to your business – especially if your business has a longer conversion cycle. Time-decay allows for a weighted attribution. This means that clicks that happened closer to the conversion are given more weight than clicks that happened further out.
Position-Based:
This is the position of a click on a timeline. For example, First and Last Click ads may receive 40% credit, while those in the conversion path would receive 20% credit.
Data-Driven:
This is still in beta testing. If you are a new account of do not have loads of traffic, then you may not have access to this model. Data-driven automatically gives credit based on past data performance.
AdWords attribution models will help identify if certain keywords, ad groups, or campaigns are contributing to overall revenue even if they are not bringing in direct conversions.