Data-Driven Attribution: better investment decisions, better marketing outcomes

We've long known that the power of digital marketing is in its measurability. But measurability is only half the battle.  The other half is attribution — understanding how to allocate credit to your various marketing programs and appropriately recognize their impact on the customer journey.

Over the past two years, we’ve built a strong foundation in attribution with Multi-Channel Funnels and the Attribution Model Comparison Tool in Google Analytics (as well as additional tools for AdWords and Google Display Network). Today, we’re expanding our attribution capabilities with Data-Driven Attribution in Google Analytics Premium, with algorithmic models and a new set of reports designed to take the guesswork out of attribution. It’s available globally to all Google Analytics Premium customers.


Data-Driven Attribution analyzes the customer journey, whether that journey ends in a purchase (or conversion) or not. Our modeling methodology, grounded in statistics and economic principles, automatically assigns values to your marketing touchpoints. You’ll see a more complete and actionable view of which digital channels and keywords are performing best, so you can achieve a better return on your marketing and advertising investments.

Recently, a large telecommunications company used Data-Driven Attribution to help optimize media spend and placements to help capture small business leads. After using Data-Driven Attribution, they gained newfound confidence in making decisions about Display. They saw leads from Display increased 10% while cost per lead remained flat, and saw that some media placements had been undervalued by 58%. 

Why use Data-Driven Attribution:
  • Algorithmic: The model automatically distributes credit across marketing channels. You define your own success metrics, like e-commerce transactions or other goals, and the model adapts and regularly refreshes using the most recent conversion path data.
  • Transparent: With our unique Model Explorer, you’ll have full insight into model behavior and understand how marketing touch points are valued — no “black box” methodology.
  • Actionable: Detailed insights into the individual contribution of a marketing channel (in both converting and non-converting paths) provide clear guidance, so you can make better data-driven marketing decisions
  • Support: Google Analytics Premium customers can take advantage of their relationship with a dedicated services and support team.
  • Cross-platform Integrations: In addition to our deep integrations with Google products such as AdWords, the Google Display Network, and YouTube, you can pull in data from virtually any digital channel.
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Applying Data-Driven Attribution to improve your results:
Google Analytics Premium customers can use the Data-Driven Attribution model to select and analyze marketing techniques, such as Display advertising or email campaigns. Easy analysis tools in the attribution reports let you compare values from the Data-Driven Attribution model to your default model, then sort and filter your data to discover where campaign changes could have the greatest impact. After identifying which channels (or campaigns, or keywords) have the greatest potential, adjust your programs and test the results. Once you’ve learned how the Data-Driven Attribution model compares to your prior model (and viewed the Model Explorer to see how the data-driven values were calculated), you can go straight to the ROI Analysis report, which lets you focus on optimization insights.

How it works:
The Data-Driven Attribution model is enabled through comparing conversion path structures and the associated likelihood of conversion given a certain order of events. The difference in path structure, and the associated difference in conversion probability, are the foundation for the algorithm which computes the channel weights. The more impact the presence of a certain marketing channel has on the conversion probability, the higher the weight of this channel in the attribution model. The underlying probability model has been shown to predict conversion significantly better than a last-click methodology. Data-Driven Attribution seeks to best represent the actual behavior of customers in the real world, but is an estimate that should be validated as much as possible using controlled experimentation.

To learn more about Google Analytics Premium, contact your Google Account Manager, or visit google.com/analytics/premium.

Posted by Bill Kee, Product Manager for Attribution, and Jody Shapiro, Product Manager for Google Analytics Premium

Google Analytics Premium expands into Europe and drives insights for 3 Suisses, Rocket Internet, Privalia & LAN

Bonjour, guten Tag, & hola -- we’re expanding Google Analytics Premium to France, Germany and Spain. Google Analytics Premium is all the power and ease you expect from Google Analytics standard, plus extras that help larger businesses get the most from its robust capabilities. Google Analytics Premium provides access to a dedicated services and support team, service guarantees, and greater data processing power - all for one flat fee.

Now companies can purchase directly from our network of Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers in France, Germany, & Spain. Leading up to this launch, we worked with a select few European reseller partners and well known global companies to help us kick the tires and ensure that Google Analytics Premium has been regionally tested for success. Big thank you to our clients 3 Suisses, Rocket Internet, Privalia Group & LAN along with our first reseller partners fifty-five, Trakken, e-Wolff, WATT, Webanalytics.es & Metriplica for sharing with us their experience using Google Analytics Premium.

Here are a few ways that they’ve found Google Analytics Premium to be helpful:


Headquartered in Croix, France
With a presence in almost 20 countries throughout Europe, 3 Suisses is a major e-retailer and the 2nd largest fashion and home-decor site in France. In order to continually improve customer service and site performance in Europe, 3 Suisses chose Google Analytics Premium in part for the close collaboration with Google’s teams. The main objectives are:
  • Improve the purchasing experience of millions of customer on their websites
  • Optimize the performance of product merchandising for over a million visitors per day
  • Enrich CRM programs with web analytics data in order to develop a 360-degree view of customers
  • Boost the fast-paced development of 3 Suisses’ e-commerce activities
In order to quickly reach these business objectives, 3 Suisses is working with 55, a long-standing partner well known for its expertise in Business Analytics. 55 are helping to implement and leverage Analytics in all realms of their business organization. A major objective for 3 Suisses is to allow marketers and managers alike to make fast decisions that can help them to achieve their ambitious e-commerce growth targets. The Analytics interface is incredibly user-friendly and easy to use, which makes it an important asset to foster a broad user adoption across 3 Suisses’ teams.



Headquartered in Berlin, Germany
Rocket Internet is a leading international online venture firm & incubator, with over 100+ companies launched in over 25 countries since 1999. Rocket Internet decided to purchase Google Analytics Premium via Trakken Web Services in Germany to support their growing businesses. The additional product features helped them break through the limitations they had been experiencing with the standard version of Google Analytics. Google Analytics Premium’s dedicated account support and increased features helped them to truly scale and grow data driven decision-making across all of their businesses. Read the full case study



Headquartered in Barcelona, Spain
The Privalia Online Fashion Group was founded in Barcelona in 2006, as a private club that offers flash sales on fashion’s top brand at exceptional prices exclusively for its members. They selected Google Analytics Premium through authorized reseller WATT to gain insights on how their users respond to content tests, personalization, and on different types of devices (mobile, tablet, desktop). Read the full case study

Google Analytics Premium meets the demanding digital analytical needs of Privalia. We find it to be a  comprehensive, flexible, easy to use solution, with a rich pool of professional users in Spain. We have confidence that we can scale with it being backed by Google and the support of its local partner network (Google Analytics Certified Partners). We’ve been impressed at the constant innovation, with new features and improvements released each year without losing usability.
 - Andres Flores, Marketing Business Intelligence & Web Analytics Manager, Privalia.



Headquartered in Las Condes, Chile and operating in Spain
LAN Airlines is one of the top flight carriers in the world, flying to 96 destinations across Latin America, North America, Europe, and Oceania. Their website LAN.com is a key component of their sales path, they have selected Google Analytics Premium through authorized reseller Metriplica.com in Spain to help them find insights on their digital marketing. They want to find the right information to enable them to make decisions fast, and expand use of analytics throughout their company with the ease of use and robustness of the Analytics Premium platform. They also receive constant support and training from Metriplica to help them grow sales through data based insights.

Google Analytics Premium provides businesses with more processing strength for granular insights, a dedicated services and support team, service guarantees and up to 1 billion hits per month, all for one flat fee. For those with more than 1 billion hits, tiered pricing is available.  Google Analytics Premium helps power the analytics of world-class brands including Travelocity, Gilt, TransUnion, Zillow, Papa Johns & IGN.

We’re excited to see how analytical companies in France, Germany, and Spain take advantage of the data, flexibility and account support offered by Google Analytics Premium. If you would like to learn more about Google Analytics Premium and how it can help your business, contact the Google Analytics sales team or one of our Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers.

Posted by Clancy Childs, Google Analytics Premium Team

Google Analytics Premium expands to Japan

Good news, or 良いニュース as they say in Japanese. We’re excited to announce that Google Analytics Premium is now available in Japan.

 

Google Analytics Premium offers all the power and ease you expect from the standard version of Google Analytics plus extras that make it great for large businesses. With more processing strength for granular insights, a dedicated services and support team, service guarantees and up to 1 billion hits per month, all for one flat fee. It provides access to more data, flexibility, and 24/7 support to help power the analytics of world-class brands including Travelocity, Gilt, TransUnion, Zillow, Papa Johns, & IGN.

Over the last year we’ve launched Google Analytics Premium in the US, UK, & Canada and our customers have been doing some really cool stuff, for example:
  • Glit was able to gain a more holistic view of their customers by using the increased number of custom variables to power their predictive modeling 
  • They found that access to unsampled data helped them to remove uncertainty and enabled them to act on test and campaign results with confidence
  • Travelocity was able to provided greater access to data across their company, enabling agile, data driven decision making 
For more details check out the full case studies from Gilt and Travelocity.

We’re excited to learn how the data driven marketers in Japan will use Google Analytics Premium to find insights that help them to grow their businesses online.

Partner network provides expert support & customizable service 
We’re also pleased to have an international network of Google Analytics Authorized Resellers that have been quality checked to ensure they are best in class analytics consultants. They have highly trained analysis teams and can perform deep analysis projects to reveal valuable insights. Below is the select group of companies that we have partnered with in Japan:

          IMJ Ayudante
          e-Agency NRI Netcom
          Dentsu eMarketing One transcosmos
          Mitsue-Links

We plan to make Premium available to even more countries in 2013. If you would like to learn more about Google Analytics Premium and how it can help your business, contact the Google Analytics sales team or one of our Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers.

Posted by Clancy Childs, Google Analytics Premium Team

Gilt embraces insights from Analytics at an enterprise level

A little over a year ago we launched Google Analytics Premium to help better meet the needs of our enterprise users. In that time we’ve been happily surprised by the warm reception and how companies have been using Google Analytics Premium to look at data in a new way. Below is a case study from Gilt, on how Google Analytics Premium has spread the love of data across their company, they leveraged the increased number of custom variables to power their predictive modeling, and used unsampled data to remove uncertainty from test results.

Gilt Groupe is an innovative online shopping destination offering its members special access to the most inspiring merchandise and experiences available. Gilt provides instant insider access to top designer brands at up to 60% off retail. Products span fashion, decor, artisanal ingredients, travel experiences, and unique activities in a growing list of cities. The bottom line for Gilt is that Google Analytics Premium has provided the ability to make better, faster data-driven decisions at every single level of the organization. Read the full case study.



“Google Analytics Premium has given everyone at Gilt quick, easy access to insights about our business. It has enabled true ‘self-service’ data across the company.”  
  - Ana Kravitz, Web Analytics Senior Manager
    Gilt Groupe



Google Analytics Premium provides enterprise level analytics with access to more data, flexibility and 24/7 support. The benefits of Premium are guaranteed SLA’s on data collection, reporting and processing times. Premium accounts also get an increase in the number of hits per month, an additional 50 custom variables, and access to unsampled data. Premium accounts also gain access to customer support including an implementation review, quality assurance, training, and a dedicated account manager.

Google Analytics Premium is currently available in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Looking towards 2013 Google Analytics Premium will continue to expand our product and services to meet the variety of Analytics enterprise customer needs. We’ll soon be popping up in 7 more countries: Japan, Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

If you would like to learn more about Google Analytics Premium and how it can help your business, contact the Google Analytics sales team or one of our Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers.

Clancy Childs
Google Analytics Premium Team