Google Ads Data Driven Attribution Updates

Over the last few weeks, we’ve covered a number of different news style topics which is a little bit of a departure from what we normally do on this channel. But we think that they’re really important. The earliest one that we did was talking about how Google is going to kind of combine phrase and broad match modifier keywords and how that impacts your match type strategy. So, if you’re interested in that, you can check out this video right here. And the most recent one that we did was around Google Sunsetting expanded text ads in the summer of 2022 and what you need to do to prep and get ready. Again, if you want to watch a video about that, you can check out this one right here.

Today, we’re going to talk about a change that might be a little less impactful on your day-to-day account management that is still going to be important. And that is that data-driven attribution is going to be the default for any new conversion action moving forward and your existing conversion actions are likely going to be opted into data-driven attribution in the next 6 months. So, in this video, what I want to do is give you a rundown of what data attribution has been up until now. Talk about what’s changing, what’s staying the same, and then give you the timeline for your accounts.

I want to start by giving a quick rundown of what Data Driven attribution is and some of the issues that we’ve had with it up until now. The data-driven attribution model is one of six different models within Google Ads, and the way it works is that it shares credit based on past data for the specific conversion action. So, it uses your account data to calculate the contribution of each interaction. In this image here, you can see the other 5 attribution models. First Click, Time Decay, Linear, Position Based, and Last Click. Last Click is currently the default and has been the default pretty much since day one of the Google Ads or at the time, AdWords platform.

I’m not going to spend time in this video discussing each of the different attribution models. If you’re interested in the difference between those, we recently did another video on these. It’s pretty good timely there so you can check that out at the top of your screen right now. But effectively the Data Driven attribution model is the machine learning version of the attribution models where Google takes data from your specific conversion action. Then attributes each touch point the amount of credit that it believes it deserves based on that machine learning algorithm. Because its Data Driven and it has actual data behind it.

That means that there were some data limitations. You had to have had at least 3,000 ad interactions in supportive networks and that conversion action had to have had it at least 300 conversions within the last 30 days. So, depending on the size of your account and how often the conversions that you have were actually being triggered, Data Driven was really hard to opt into and typically Google would just alert you with a pop up that said that your conversion action was eligible for Data Driven attribution. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to select that model and you would have had to go with one of the other five attribution in Google Ads.

So now, let’s get into what’s changing because some of what I just talked about is going to be updated. First, the Data-Driven attribution models will no longer have data minimums for usage. All of that stuff that I just said about 3,000 ad interactions, 300 conversions for each conversion action is going to go away. Google claims that their conversion modeling practices are getting so much better that they no longer need the data minimums to make Data-Driven attribution work for every action in every account no matter what the volume is. This is very similar to a change that they made a few years ago where the bidding strategy for target cost per conversion no longer needed to have certain data minimums.

In any campaign in any account with any amount of conversion volume, you can run a target cost per conversion bidding strategy in your account. But just like any other decision that is based on data, the more data you have, the better. Keep in mind that although you’ll be able to utilize data-driven attribution models without any sort of data minimums, it still will probably perform better if you have more data. DDA or the way that for typing purposes, I’m going to shorten Data-Driven Attribution will also operate on more conversion types. In the past, it only operated on a handful of conversion types but now that’s going to include in-app and offline conversions.

Next, not only will you be able to utilize data-driven attribution without any minimums, it is now going to be the default attribution model for all-new conversion actions within your account. No longer will it have last click as a default, Data Driven will actually be that default model. In addition to that, Google will start to opt in your existing conversion actions into the Data-Driven model but it’ll give you a heads up beforehand with a number of alerts to tell you that your conversion actions are going to be updated to the Data-Driven model.

So, moving forward, all new conversion actions and your existing ones will be adjusted to be Data Driven and away from last click.

The last thing that’s changing here is the way that Data Driven Attribution works when you don’t have lots of data. So, one of the questions from our friend Brad was that, if you have little amounts of conversion data, is Data Driven Attribution still going to work like the linear model because that’s the way it used to work in the past. The response to that from Jenny Marvin Google’s ads liaison is that the Data Driven Attribution models with lower volume are going to resemble a last click attribution model.

So, if you’re savvy enough to notice the difference in your conversion actions when you don’t have lots of conversion volume rather than operating like a linear model, it will sort of default to last click. So, the big takeaway here for me is that although your models will say that they are Data Driven Attribution on any new or updated on an existing conversion action. If there’s not enough conversion volume, it will default to behave like last click which would effectively be no change from where things are now. So, if you’re worried about opting into Data Driven Attribution because you don’t have a lot of volume, just remember that it will resemble last click which is what you are going to use in the first place. So, this shouldn’t be a threat or any sort of worrying piece because it will operate like last click in the meantime.

Now, let’s talk about what’s not changing, and this is going to be very short because I only really have one thing that’s not changing. And that’s that, you’ll still be able to manually opt in to any of the attribution models of your choice. The language that they’re using here is that the new conversion actions will have the default of the data-driven attribution model. Like I mentioned earlier, you will also have your existing conversion actions updated to Data Driven if you choose not to change it back. For now, the promise is that you will still be able to adjust your conversion action to any of the 6 different models that you choose but your default will simply be changed.

Now the big question here might be why is this happening? If Data Driven Attribution will resemble last click when it doesn’t have enough volume, but then when it gets volume it’ll operate as Data Driven but you can still change it. Why are they making this change in the first place? Simply stated we’re having a lot of changes in the digital space around privacy and how we’re able to attribute performance to our campaigns. Google is making this change because they believe that their data-driven model will help capture more of the conversion path for any individual user across a Data Driven model rather than last click. Because last click will be losing some efficacy because of online privacy rules and regulations.

So, without getting too far into the weeds, this is why this is happening. Google is trying as much as they can to help you attribute performance to your Google Ads campaigns because otherwise with these different privacy rules that is going to be going away. So, this is one step they’re taking to help you track the efficacy of your campaigns in the platform.

Lastly, when do we need to be on the lookout for this Data Driven Attribution model changeover? Like most other changes, this will be rolling out to accounts across the entire Google Ads environment over a number of months. This will start October of 2021, so, it’s already beginning where new conversion actions will be automatically opted into the Data Driven Attribution model. Their goal is to have all accounts opted in by early 2022. As you can see here again from the Ads Liaison is that they will be migrating existing conversion actions to DDA for many advertisers and they promise to give plenty of notice and you’ll still be able to opt out if you don’t want to do that.

All of the other attribution models will still be eligible, so you can choose whichever you want. So, just keep an eye out in your account to make sure that you see the notifications to let you know that your conversion actions are about to be adjusted.

So, the quick recap here, Data Driven Attribution will be the default option for new conversion actions and your existing conversion actions will be updated into the data-driven model if you don’t adjust them otherwise. The minimums and restrictions for the Data Driven Attribution model are going to be going away because Google’s algorithm it believes has gotten smart enough to where it can attribute performance better, and help you track the efficacy of your digital advertising campaigns during this time where we’re going through lots of different changes for privacy rules and regulations.

Lastly, for the time being, Google promises to let you be able to change the attribution model for any of your conversion actions. So, that if you want to start with Data Driven but maybe you decide that position based or linear is a better fit for you, you’ll still be able to make that change. Compared to the announcements that Google has made over the past few months. This is probably the one that will have the smallest amount of impact on your day-to-day Google Ads campaign management but it will play an important factor moving forward to help you attribute performance. Make sure that you’re tracking your conversions and giving credit to the full customer touch point flow, as opposed to just last click. But it’ll also help us according to Google make sure that we are tracking performance for those campaigns based on those privacy regulations.

This is still a relatively new story and I’ve tried to cover it as well as I could. But if there’s something else that develops, we will absolutely come back to you. If I’ve missed anything, please follow up with any questions that you have for us in the comments below.

Written by Michelle Morgan