Multi-Channel Funnels Part 1: Overview

The Google Analytics team recently announced Multi-Channel Funnels which has been released as a limited pilot to a small number of Google Analytics accounts. As Google Analytics Certified Partners we have been testing the new reports but Google has asked us to point out they do not have any plans and have not given us a timeline for a full launch of the reports. Once you are tracking conversions or e-commerce transactions in Google Analytics, one of the main problems is understanding how to attribute a conversions or sale to more than one source and medium.

Google Analytics has used last click attribution, which means that actions and conversions are credited to the last method of accessing your site.

For example;

Somebody performs a search on Google and clicks on your organic (free) search result. A few days later they access your site again, but this time they came via another website (partner.com) and then they convert.

The credit for the conversion goes to the last method of accessing your site, in this example the credit goes to the website and not the original search on Google.

A report presenting last click attribution;

Multi-Channel = Multi-Attribution = Greater Insights

Multi-Attribution Funnels in Google Analytics aim to solve this problem by presenting us with the complete view of the ways people are finding our site before they convert.

Example continued;

Taking our previous example, if we were to look at the same scenario using Multi-Channel Funnels we will see that the visitor did convert after coming via the other website (partner.com), but we will also be able to look back and also see that the original search on Google did in-fact contribute to the conversion.

This means we now have multi-attribution and can begin to see the impacts and cross-effects of our different marketing campaigns (or channels) on our conversions.

One of the new multi-attribution reports (called 'Top Conversion Paths');

Want to know more about Multi-Channel Funnels?

Read our next post Multi-Channel Funnels Part 2: Reports that goes into more detail about interpreting data and advanced setup options.

Watch our video on Multi-Channel Funnels:

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