Why Google Ads Attribution Is Failing and How to Work Around It

John: 00:00:11

Like, you know what I, I want the world to know this.

John: 00:00:12

I think that this is something that maybe some agencies have been combating.

John: 00:00:17

What this means is, Google is losing its tracking capability

John: 00:00:22

more and more frequently.

John: 00:00:23

Google's not gonna mention this, we're not gonna hear about it anywhere else,

John: 00:00:26

but we're starting to see this more often, that when we run on mer, if you look at

John: 00:00:30

good non-brand cold traffic, scalable campaigns, what we're doing instead of

John: 00:00:33

Google is not having the proper credit attuned to what we know should be.

John: 00:00:44

Hey everyone.

John: 00:00:44

John around here with Solutions eight, and today we're gonna be talking about how

John: 00:00:46

Google Ads sucks and its own attribution tracking . So Google Ads, you can use as

John: 00:00:50

many different attribution models you do.

John: 00:00:51

First click, last click time decay linear, doesn't really matter.

John: 00:00:54

Uh, they've all been actually working less efficiently lately

John: 00:00:56

and acting more like last click.

John: 00:00:58

What I mean by that is we have actually, , seen this more and more recently, that

John: 00:01:03

one click attributed campaigns that are designed to be one click attributed

John: 00:01:06

campaigns, whereas standard shopping or inbound search, dsa, whatever.

John: 00:01:09

When it doesn't remarket its own traffic, it actually doesn't give a lot of credit.

John: 00:01:12

So again, one of my, , videos that I posted last Friday was

John: 00:01:15

about MER media efficiency ratio.

John: 00:01:17

All cash in, all cash out.

John: 00:01:18

That becomes more and more than normal lately, as Google is having

John: 00:01:21

less and less attribution to the actual campaigns that are working

John: 00:01:23

and more towards what just happened recently, kind of like analytics.

John: 00:01:27

We're using Google Ads conversion track for this client here.

John: 00:01:30

We're actually using at the time, a first click attribution.

John: 00:01:33

So here's what's amazing.

John: 00:01:34

, walk you.

John: 00:01:35

What we've actually been seeing more recently and why MER is

John: 00:01:38

actually really important.

John: 00:01:39

So I'll prove it to you here.

John: 00:01:40

If I go into the change history of this client and I just

John: 00:01:43

look at, , today, for example.

John: 00:01:45

You'll see, I dunno why I show zero.

John: 00:01:48

You'll see that actually went from first click to data driven

John: 00:01:50

on the purchase conversion action.

John: 00:01:52

I did that at one o'clock today it's only four 30, so it's not that long ago.

John: 00:01:55

But here's what we saw is in this campaign, , in the last three days,

John: 00:01:59

just for a quick example, , we know that everything's working well.

John: 00:02:01

We have 2,400 in, , 8,700 out.

John: 00:02:03

So.

John: 00:02:04

Really good roaz, you know, it's 360 1.

John: 00:02:06

Great.

John: 00:02:07

Here's what's interesting though.

John: 00:02:08

Standard shopping actually has zero conversions and zero

John: 00:02:10

conversion value for $247.

John: 00:02:12

Hmm.

John: 00:02:13

That's odd because we're looking at Norphine, the attribution tool, where

John: 00:02:16

we're looking at just converting paths that have what they call click only.

John: 00:02:20

We can see that in the last, , three days, January 1st of the third, same

John: 00:02:23

date range here, January 1st of the.

John: 00:02:25

I can see that my standard shopping had a click and then they came back through

John: 00:02:28

what they call the search purchase intent.

John: 00:02:30

One person took that one path and spent $254.

John: 00:02:33

So I know that this person came into the brand new campaign that

John: 00:02:36

just started and got a click and got a conversion, and I was running

John: 00:02:39

on first click during this time.

John: 00:02:42

So first click.

John: 00:02:44

Should have given all of the attribution back to standard shopping.

John: 00:02:47

It didn't.

John: 00:02:47

It gave all of the attribution to my search purchase intent,

John: 00:02:51

which is still doing really well.

John: 00:02:52

But now this campaign looks like it spent $247 made 0 cents.

John: 00:02:56

So what this means is that Google is losing it's tracking capability

John: 00:03:03

more and more frequently.

John: 00:03:04

Google's not gonna mention this, you're not gonna hear about it anywhere else,

John: 00:03:06

but we're starting to see this more often, that when we run Mount Mer, you look at

John: 00:03:10

good non-brand cold traffic, scalable.

John: 00:03:13

You're going to see an increase in efficiency regardless of

John: 00:03:15

what Google Ads says internally.

John: 00:03:18

So why is this important?

John: 00:03:19

So all the good marketers out there that are been kind of scratching their

John: 00:03:21

heads lately and say, well, why is brand the only thing that working and

John: 00:03:24

why is my, my why does my remarketing actually work a little bit less?

John: 00:03:28

And why is it more less click attributed where all of these things like YouTube

John: 00:03:32

and standard shopping or anything on the first click attributed networks

John: 00:03:36

or first click, um, important networks are starting to lose their ef.

John: 00:03:40

And this is actually something that we've been seeing as well.

John: 00:03:43

And so we still, we've gotta go back to our, our roots.

John: 00:03:46

We know that if.

John: 00:03:48

Relevance search terms, if they're good traffic, if they're of the

John: 00:03:50

right audience, demographic, good, you know, affinity in-market

John: 00:03:54

audience, and whatever it may be.

John: 00:03:56

. That will usually result in sales regardless of what Google Ads says,

John: 00:03:59

because Google is not convert.

John: 00:04:01

The, I'm sorry, is not attributing properly.

John: 00:04:04

So Norian became more important to us recently because of this fact.

John: 00:04:07

But also it should become more important for you to know this because

John: 00:04:12

what you're doing is still working.

John: 00:04:15

Google's just kind of turning into iOS and yes, we have enhanced conversions

John: 00:04:18

on and we do have a 90 day attribution window and it was using first click.

John: 00:04:22

So yeah, it's been starting to get a little bit more, um, lackluster

John: 00:04:28

lately where the campaigns like Performance Max, that kind of over

John: 00:04:32

attribute itself potentially are starting to steal a little bit more of

John: 00:04:36

the Good Wholesome standard campaign.

John: 00:04:39

Bad people have been running.

John: 00:04:40

So just got some food for thought there that I saw this today

John: 00:04:42

and I'm like, you know what?

John: 00:04:43

I, I want the world to know this.

John: 00:04:44

I think that this is something that maybe some agencies have been

John: 00:04:48

combating clients lately on versus says, no, no, no, this is working.

John: 00:04:51

Don't turn off that row as is not realistic or that CPA is under attributed.

John: 00:04:56

, this just a really good.

John: 00:04:58

Indicator that what we're doing instead of Google is not having the proper credit

John: 00:05:03

intruded to what we know should be.

John: 00:05:05

So, , hopefully it take something of the waveness.

John: 00:05:07

Hopefully it kind of makes you think differently about your campaigns and

John: 00:05:09

think differently about cold traffic.

John: 00:05:10

That probably is pretty scalable even though Google says you are a bad marketer.

John: 00:05:15

, thank you so much.

John: 00:05:16

It's general solution.