Google has news! Here’s how it will affect your campaigns.
Google has just announced one of its most significant changes in a long time. As we all know, in July 2023 Google Universal Analytics will stop collecting data and we’ll have to migrate to Google Analytics 4. This change still leaves many open questions. One of the most important is how ad attribution will work in Google Analytics 4.
They’ve moved from importing non-direct clicks from GA4 into Google Ads to full cross-channel conversion import.
Different attribution models have always been a headache for marketers. Knowing which campaigns are converting and how much they influence the purchase is vital to optimize the different channels (Google Ads, Social Media…) and make decisions.
The difference between “Last Click” and “Cross Channel” attribution
What does all this mean? We’ll explain in this post. Let’s imagine a hypothetical purchase.
On Day 1, a customer searches on Google Shopping, clicks through and views the product, but doesn’t buy.
On Day 3, the same customer clicks a Facebook retargeting ad and makes a purchase.
Last Click attribution
How Google Analytics 4 last non-direct click import worked (before):
Because Google Analytics used a last non-direct click attribution model, Facebook was credited with 100% of the conversion value, since it was the last click before the conversion. When importing conversions from Google Analytics into Google Ads, this conversion didn’t appear in Google Ads, as it wasn’t the “last non-direct click” in Google Analytics.
Cross-Channel attribution
How it will work from now on: full cross-channel conversion credit import from Google Analytics 4 (still to be implemented):
With this update, the full cross-channel conversion value will now be imported into Google Ads (even if the last non-direct click wasn’t on a Google ad). This means Google Ads can now receive a fraction of the value and conversion attributed to Google Ads: say you’re using a linear model, Google will get 0.5 conversions and 50% of the conversion value for this journey.
It’s hard to gauge the exact impact until we see how it shows up in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads; however, the new cross-channel import is very valuable for reporting and will give you a more accurate picture of conversion value by including the impact of other channels. It will also help identify large discrepancies between the values recorded by Google Ads and those of GA4 multichannel products/ads, so you can adjust bids or make changes accordingly.
Google Analytics 4 tracking limitations
That said, GA4 tracking still has its shortcomings compared to Google Ads tracking. Here are some differences:
GA4: doesn’t track view-throughs for networks such as Display or YouTube, while Google Ads tracking can.
GA4 has no built-in cross-device identification, so it needs user IDs, whereas Google Ads tracking uses signed-in user data to identify users across devices and also offers enhanced conversions to track users identified across devices using hashed first-party data.
GA4 can’t provide full server-side tracking unless a script is run, whereas Google Ads offers full server-side tracking with offline conversion click import, which bypasses ad blockers and is collected at server level.
These factors play an integral role in performance optimization, as they determine what data the bidding algorithms used by Google Ads receive. This means Google Ads tracking will remain our preferred option for bidding (Primary), while GA4 import will be our preferred option for reporting.
