Proof That Google’s Attribution Is Costing You Money and What to Do About It

kasim: 00:00:11

Dude, five grand worth of purchases, completely untracked

kasim: 00:00:14

over the course of four days.

kasim: 00:00:15

It's pretty scary.

kasim: 00:00:16

I think that Google's losing so much attribution that we

kasim: 00:00:19

really need to rely on mer.

kasim: 00:00:21

So whether tracking conversions by click or conversions by time from day one.

kasim: 00:00:25

It was not tracking anything at all.

kasim: 00:00:26

I wanna set the stage, so it's gonna take just a couple minutes, but I want to

kasim: 00:00:30

disprove anybody that might be thinking that there's some, Tom foolery about,

kasim: 00:00:35

but John Google can't track attributed.

kasim: 00:00:37

What do I do?

kasim: 00:00:37

What's the answer?

kasim: 00:00:43

Attribution sucks.

kasim: 00:00:45

Yeah, we can prove it.

kasim: 00:00:47

. So we actually have I wanna set the stage, so it's gonna take just a

kasim: 00:00:50

couple minutes, but I want to disprove anybody that might be thinking that

kasim: 00:00:53

there's some, Tom foolery about.

kasim: 00:00:56

. And so what I wanted to share with you first off is in this account inside

kasim: 00:01:00

of the conversion actions, we're using a G T M purchase conversion action.

kasim: 00:01:06

That's still obviously tracking conversions.

kasim: 00:01:08

Till this day I'm using data driven 90 day attribution, even using

kasim: 00:01:12

enhanced conversions and diagnostics say that it's running good.

kasim: 00:01:16

It ha it always has been running well.

kasim: 00:01:17

This is something that we even looked at through Google, cuz

kasim: 00:01:19

Google couldn't figure this out.

kasim: 00:01:20

But on January 1st through the fourth, I started a standard shopping campaign and

kasim: 00:01:26

I'm only spending about 75 to $80 a day.

kasim: 00:01:28

And so I'm just getting this warmed up.

kasim: 00:01:30

And as soon as Google decides to come back online here I could share this with you.

kasim: 00:01:33

What happened?

kasim: 00:01:34

So standard shopping campaign in Google and.

kasim: 00:01:36

First of the 4th of January is when we just started this.

kasim: 00:01:39

I'm now spending up to $700 a day because we found out how good it was.

kasim: 00:01:42

But I only spent $281 between January 1st and the fourth, and

kasim: 00:01:46

I've saw zero conversions by time, zero conversions by click.

kasim: 00:01:51

I did have a couple add to cards and so the all conversions was tracking

kasim: 00:01:54

two, but it was not tracking any conversions that we would normally

kasim: 00:01:57

with our purchase conversion, which is the only thing that we'd track.

kasim: 00:02:01

And if I look in the back end of, nor.

kasim: 00:02:03

Which is a third party attribution tool, and I look at the same client for January

kasim: 00:02:06

1st through the fourth, these four days.

kasim: 00:02:08

What I can see is that I had a first click in standard shopping, two clicks, actually

kasim: 00:02:12

eight more direct clicks, two pmax clicks and email click and email click two

kasim: 00:02:16

more direct clicks, and $3,000 in sales.

kasim: 00:02:19

That's the first sale.

kasim: 00:02:20

On the next one here, I see another standard shopping that went to

kasim: 00:02:24

a welcome top products email.

kasim: 00:02:25

So standard shopping, they went and they signed up for

kasim: 00:02:28

a web or signed up for a new.

kasim: 00:02:30

Which I guess still happens today.

kasim: 00:02:32

They got the newsletter email and they spent $418 here.

kasim: 00:02:35

That was the first click on standard shopping.

kasim: 00:02:37

I did get a second click on standard shopping, so someone

kasim: 00:02:39

was already at the site.

kasim: 00:02:40

They kept Googling things about this product and they came back and made 360 8.

kasim: 00:02:44

Okay, so there's another $368 here.

kasim: 00:02:46

And then we see another standard shopping.

kasim: 00:02:48

First click, and then a re-click in a search.

kasim: 00:02:50

They did , two searches.

kasim: 00:02:51

One click on standard shopping, one click on a search, add another $254.

kasim: 00:02:55

Here I saw another standard shopping to direct, which is

kasim: 00:02:58

another $254 here into sale.

kasim: 00:03:00

I have two direct clicks, a standard shopping, another direct

kasim: 00:03:02

click for 228 dollars in sales.

kasim: 00:03:04

And that was just the first four days.

kasim: 00:03:06

So if you add this all up, it comes out to be like 45 or almost $5,000

kasim: 00:03:10

in sales and standard shopping.

kasim: 00:03:12

Zero.

kasim: 00:03:13

And in fact, this campaign actually didn't start tracking conversions,

kasim: 00:03:17

I think till like the 12th day.

kasim: 00:03:19

So first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,

kasim: 00:03:21

eighth, nine, 10th, 11, 12th.

kasim: 00:03:22

Then it started tracking conversions and then we see the conversions

kasim: 00:03:24

starting to move on after this.

kasim: 00:03:27

So whether tracking conversions by click are conversions by time from day one

kasim: 00:03:31

it was not tracking anything at all.

kasim: 00:03:33

The other part that I wanted to mention is inside the change history

kasim: 00:03:36

between the first and the fourth.

kasim: 00:03:38

The first three days I saw that we're missing conversions and inside

kasim: 00:03:41

the change history so that you can kind of see what I did here.

kasim: 00:03:44

I actually took on the.

kasim: 00:03:46

fourth and changed it from first click attribution to data driven.

kasim: 00:03:49

I was using first click attribution and I wanted to see, this is the actual first

kasim: 00:03:54

click to the site and I wanted to prove it to hear what man, Google's so slow today.

kasim: 00:03:58

But this is what's really interesting is there's probably four or five

kasim: 00:04:00

conversions that I missed that I was directly attributed to from a first click.

kasim: 00:04:03

They went back through the email, they went back direct.

kasim: 00:04:06

They may have clicked on a different, Search ad, but it was

kasim: 00:04:09

not giving me any credit at all.

kasim: 00:04:10

Now for 12 days, I saw in the back end, I saw it was working.

kasim: 00:04:13

I saw the client make more money.

kasim: 00:04:14

The MER was better, the cost acquired, the customer was lower,

kasim: 00:04:16

everything was starting to go good.

kasim: 00:04:17

So I just started cranking up standard shopping.

kasim: 00:04:19

I said, I'm not gonna wait for Google to tell me it's working.

kasim: 00:04:21

I know it's working.

kasim: 00:04:22

And here you can see on January 4th, my purchase conversion attribution model

kasim: 00:04:26

changed from first click to data driven.

kasim: 00:04:27

So I was on first click during the time that I can.

kasim: 00:04:31

even if it comes back to performance Max, doesn't matter.

kasim: 00:04:33

It's on first click attribution.

kasim: 00:04:34

I should at least seen this $3,000 here.

kasim: 00:04:37

I should have at least seen the standard shopping here.

kasim: 00:04:40

I should have at least seen the standard shopping here.

kasim: 00:04:42

The standard shopping here.

kasim: 00:04:44

I wasn't seeing any of it.

kasim: 00:04:45

. So yeah, it's pretty scary.

kasim: 00:04:46

I think that Google's losing so much attribution that we really need

kasim: 00:04:50

to rely on MER and we really need to, which media efficiency ratio.

kasim: 00:04:53

All cash in.

kasim: 00:04:54

All cash out.

kasim: 00:04:54

You know, good quality cold traffic will.

kasim: 00:04:57

But yeah, it's it's getting pretty, pretty dismal out there.

kasim: 00:05:00

, dude, five grand worth of purchases, completely untracked

kasim: 00:05:03

over the course of four days.

kasim: 00:05:04

Mm-hmm.

kasim: 00:05:05

. And now you already talked about what to do, but let's slow

kasim: 00:05:08

down for just a minute, okay?

kasim: 00:05:09

Mm-hmm.

kasim: 00:05:09

. Well, John, Google can't track attributed, what do I do?

kasim: 00:05:12

What's the answer?

kasim: 00:05:13

Yeah, it's really weird.

kasim: 00:05:14

We almost have to go back to like 10 years ago when analytics was like,

kasim: 00:05:17

pretty much like kind of the main conversion action and you weren't

kasim: 00:05:19

getting any sort of sales attributed to you because they would all come back

kasim: 00:05:22

directly as sort of analytics would say these direct users are coming back.

kasim: 00:05:25

Now that it's moved into kind of back to that positioning where Google is

kasim: 00:05:28

missing those users and because it sees them as new people, a lot of the

kasim: 00:05:32

times analytics is still even wrong.

kasim: 00:05:35

Tag manager is wrong, analytics is wrong.

kasim: 00:05:37

The best thing that I can give as an advice if you're in the seat of Google

kasim: 00:05:41

Ads, is to A, understand all of your spend and how much overlap there is.

kasim: 00:05:45

So if you're running Facebook and you're running Google, for example,

kasim: 00:05:48

or maybe another team's running Facebook and you're running Google.

kasim: 00:05:51

Sync with that team often, or if you're doing both of 'em, sync with yourself

kasim: 00:05:55

often by making very specific changes.

kasim: 00:05:57

Make sure you're going after as much cold traffic as possible.

kasim: 00:06:00

Make sure you're only making large optimizations or spend increases in

kasim: 00:06:03

one channel at a time to identify how that's affecting your overall revenue.

kasim: 00:06:07

But also look at if you're getting too much brand or doing too much

kasim: 00:06:11

remarketing, but your roaz is.

kasim: 00:06:12

It may be, , not a very well optimized campaign cuz you can't scale it.

kasim: 00:06:16

You're simply just kind of being the last piece of the puzzle and

kasim: 00:06:19

attributing sales to yourself.

kasim: 00:06:20

So the most amount of cold traffic that you can look at and that you

kasim: 00:06:23

can, go after the least amount of warm traffic and brand traffic, the

kasim: 00:06:26

least amount of remarking you can do.

kasim: 00:06:27

And then say if I start to crank up where it looks to be good quality

kasim: 00:06:30

searches and good quality clicks, and my CPCs high and my, which is good,

kasim: 00:06:34

my positioning's high and everything's relevant, and I can Google these

kasim: 00:06:37

keywords and I can also see it working if everything should be working.

kasim: 00:06:39

But Google is saying it's not.

kasim: 00:06:41

Check to see when you started that campaign and the overall effect

kasim: 00:06:43

that it's had on that company.

kasim: 00:06:45

Do you think GA four fixes us at all?

kasim: 00:06:47

Not yet.

kasim: 00:06:47

No.

kasim: 00:06:48

Google actually, when I showed them this issue, they say, well, we can wait.

kasim: 00:06:52

Sorry, we can wait for GA four.

kasim: 00:06:54

It's having the same issue and we think it's, it should be fixed soon.

kasim: 00:06:58

So I'm just so on a long enough timeline.

kasim: 00:06:59

In theory, Google's narrative is GA four fixes this.

kasim: 00:07:02

Correct.

kasim: 00:07:03

But until then, we're all, we're merman.

kasim: 00:07:05

We're . Exactly.

kasim: 00:07:07

We're all merman right now.

kasim: 00:07:08

Yeah.

kasim: 00:07:09

. I'm a merman.

kasim: 00:07:12

. Did you see basically a gift that Ari made of you?

kasim: 00:07:14

Yeah.

kasim: 00:07:14

I love that.

kasim: 00:07:15

I, I had, this is so good.

kasim: 00:07:16

I had to do the screenshot like this.

kasim: 00:07:18

Oh, so that, oh, I thought she took a picture.

kasim: 00:07:20

Like just, you know.

kasim: 00:07:21

Gotcha.

kasim: 00:07:22

No, you did that.

kasim: 00:07:23

You closed.

kasim: 00:07:24

We did.

kasim: 00:07:24

It was on a meeting and a companywide meeting, and I said, I'm the meash.

kasim: 00:07:27

She was like, I'd love to make a gif.

kasim: 00:07:28

I said, screenshot.

kasim: 00:07:29

No, I just lost so much respect for you.

kasim: 00:07:34

I see.

kasim: 00:07:34

Yeah.

kasim: 00:07:35

When you don't have any self-respect to start, it doesn't matter.

kasim: 00:07:37

You can only go up from here.

kasim: 00:07:38

You know what your, your excuse is, you're Girl Dad Grill.

kasim: 00:07:41

Dads have to like, you know, get their toenails painted, wear makeup.

kasim: 00:07:44

Oh, yeah.

kasim: 00:07:44

You just took one for the global team.

kasim: 00:07:46

Exactly, exactly.

kasim: 00:07:47

Poses merman.

kasim: 00:07:48

Yep.

kasim: 00:07:48

And now.

kasim: 00:07:48

And now.

kasim: 00:07:49

If you're out there, don't be afraid to be your true merman's self.

kasim: 00:07:51

It's okay.

kasim: 00:07:52

That's right.

kasim: 00:07:54

All right.

kasim: 00:07:54

Well this is great.

kasim: 00:07:55

And now here's the thing.

kasim: 00:07:56

It's good for us Yeah.

kasim: 00:07:58

As an agency, but dude, as a business owner, I would be so annoyed if

kasim: 00:08:02

somebody sent me this video, , right?

kasim: 00:08:04

Yeah.

kasim: 00:08:04

Here's what I'm gonna do.

kasim: 00:08:04

I'm on sales calls, I'm gonna say, watch this.

kasim: 00:08:07

Yeah.

kasim: 00:08:07

And it's almost like, Hey, so what I'm tracking doesn't matter.

kasim: 00:08:10

You, you can hold me accountable for nothing.

kasim: 00:08:12

Yeah.

kasim: 00:08:13

Yeah.

kasim: 00:08:13

How violently frustra.

kasim: 00:08:16

But I actually, I have a lot of I have a lot of clients where I've started

kasim: 00:08:19

to simply just scale Google and we're looking at just pure net profit mer

kasim: 00:08:23

Here's what's the funny thing about it is if you're a business owner,

kasim: 00:08:26

take yourself out of the Google ads ecosystem and manage by revenue data.

kasim: 00:08:31

Well, I mean cash in the bank, which is how you started your company anyway.

kasim: 00:08:35

It's like if I'm spending more and I'm making more good, if I'm

kasim: 00:08:37

spending more and I'm making.

kasim: 00:08:38

Bad and then there are scientific ways for you to go about and figure out like

kasim: 00:08:41

what the more might attribute to et cetera, which you just talked about.

kasim: 00:08:45

This is great, dude.

kasim: 00:08:45

This is great.

kasim: 00:08:46

Great, great.

kasim: 00:08:46

Absolutely appreciate you.

kasim: 00:08:47

If you're watching, you need to be a Merman or Mer Mermaid, right?

kasim: 00:08:51

Mer Women, Mer Woman or mer, then we're trying to be correct.

kasim: 00:08:55

Yeah.

kasim: 00:08:56

we're people.