Inside Google's Multi-Channel Funnel Reports

Over the last few days, we’ve looked closely at online marketing dashboards, using Google Analytics to measure your marketing effectiveness, and how to measure the value of your content. Of course the challenge shared by all these techniques is how to attribute “upstream” interactions, i.e., the stuff that happens before the visitor converts. Attribution modeling provides one technique for determining the value of these interactions. But, now, Google Analytics provides another with its “Multi-Channel Funnels” reports.

As the company notes in its blog post:

“This set of five new reports in Google Analytics gives marketers insight into the full path to conversion over a 30 day period, not simply the last click.

By looking at interactions across most digital media channels, including clicks from paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads, you can understand how different channels work together to create sales and conversions.”

Google also offers a video outlining how their multi-channel funnels report works:

The reports provide excellent insight into the paths your site visitors used prior to converting, such as seen here:

And they also show which channels “assist” conversions even if not responsible for the last click, like this:

Pretty sweet, huh?

Now, it’s going to take some time to get used to how to make the most of these reports. As George Michie pointed out a while back, not every touchpoint in the marketing funnel assists conversions. Still, this is an important step forward for Google Analytics and one that every site owner should start to familiarize themselves with. And, if you need some help, drop me a line. I’ll be happy to give you a hand.

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