Knowing which channels and ads work together can help you optimize your messaging and creatives. A sale or new tag line will be most effective if it's reinforced across the channels that a customer encounters on her way to conversion.
The MCF Top Conversion Paths report helps you identify synergies between channels, ads, and keywords. To focus just on keyword transitions, select Keyword Path as the Primary Dimension. Or, to see how keywords work with non-search channels, select Keyword (Or Source/Medium) Path as the Primary Dimension.
If two channels work well together, you might plan a coordinated campaign or spend in both channels simultaneously to capture all parts of the funnel.
Timing strategy
Time to conversion can be important. Look at your Time Lag and Top Conversion Paths report data and plan accordingly. For example, if Display and Email typically start the funnel and take 15 days to convert, start your display and email campaigns in advance of other campaigns, and keep other channels on longer for residual effects.
Skewed conversion credit
The Top Conversion Paths report can help you identify last interaction channels that may be unfairly winning credit for conversions. In the following example conversion path, purchasers searched for "Hawaii vacation," later searched for your travel site, but only returned to book their trip through an affiliate.
Example
"Hawaii vacation" > "your hotel name" > affliliate (referral)
A pattern like this can indicate that customers had already decided to purchase but decided to search for a coupon first. Contracts paying on a CPA or CPA% basis to affiliates may need renegotiation to partial instead of full credit.
