About attribution reports

Benefits

Attribution reports show you the paths customers take to complete conversions and provide insights into how your different advertising efforts work together to create conversions. For example, you can see whether certain keywords assisted conversions that eventually happened through other keywords. This gives you a better sense of your potential customers' conversion paths than just looking at the last-clicked keyword.

How to find your attribution reports

Attribution reports help you understand different aspects of your conversion data. 

To find attribution reports:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Measurements drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Attribution.

How to use report controls

Attribution reports have the following report controls. Use these controls to customise your reports and review the data that matters most to your business.

Date range

The date range that you select determines which conversions to include in the report. Click the date range in the top right of the page to update the date range for the entire report. If you opt to compare date ranges, click the '< >' symbols that appear in each column to expand the column and view data for each date range. 

You can select date ranges beginning as far back as 2 years ago. Path report and attribution credit data older than 2 years is deleted and can't be restored.

Dimension

Click the 'Dimension' drop-down menu in the top left of the page to change what slice of data the report displays. For example, you can select Campaigns, Ad groups, Keywords and more.

Conversion action

Look-back window

Use the 'Look-back window' control to adjust an attribution report's look-back window to 30, 60 or 90 days. Most reports show a 30-day lookback window when you open them.

The 'Model comparison' report has one more lookback window option than the other reports. The 'Default' option sets the report's look-back window to the same number of days that you selected as the conversion window for each conversion action within Tools > Measurement > Conversions.

The 'Overview' report

The 'Overview' report gives you a high-level view of your conversion paths. It tells you information like how many days and ad interactions it took users to convert, how many of your conversions included ad interactions on more than one device, and which campaigns are most effective at assisting conversions. This provides valuable insight into your customers' journeys to conversion.

The 'Conversion paths' report

The 'Conversion paths' report shows you the most common paths that your customers take to complete a conversion. It provides this information based on the ads that your customers clicked before a conversion took place. Within this report, you can see more details by selecting options from the drop-down menus.

'View' menu

By default, the report shows paths, which provide a detailed look at the sequences of users' ad interactions prior to conversion. Successive ad interactions with the same dimension value are consolidated into a single touch point showing the number of repeat interactions.

Select Transition paths from the 'View' menu at the top of the report to see a higher-level view of the sequences of users’ ad interactions prior to conversion. Transition paths treat successive ad interactions with the same dimension value as a single interaction. This is useful for seeing how customers move between different keywords, ad groups or campaigns on their path to conversion.

'Devices' dimension

Select the Devices dimension to see paths broken down by your audience's devices, for which we show the device type (desktop, tablet, mobile). Two adjacent elements in the path are for different devices, but not necessarily a different device type. This allows you to examine the order in which people typically use different devices before they complete a conversion.

'Video impressions'

Video impressions help you understand how your upper-funnel strategy drives conversions. Data-driven attribution helps you understand attribution models by using your conversion data to calculate the actual contribution of each ad interaction across the conversion path. In addition to data-driven attribution, we have now included YouTube impressions in the reports. You can also view YouTube impressions in the reports by switching the toggle button on.

The 'Path metrics' report

The 'Path metrics' report shows how long – and how many interactions – it takes for users to convert. It also shows how many conversions happened after a given number of days or interactions, and how much those conversions are worth.

'Avg. days/hours to conversion'

By default, the report shows 'Avg. days to conversion.' This view tells you how much time it takes for a customer to complete a conversion, with a row for each day to conversion from the last ad interaction.

Use the 'Measure from' drop-down menu to show the time measured from either the first or the last ad interaction. Use the 'Measure in' drop-down menu to select Days or Hours.

The 'Avg. days/hours to conversion' view can give you insight into the length of your online sales cycle. If your ads are an immediate call to action, such as a one-day sale or a sign-up for an event, you'll want to see fewer days/hours to conversion. If you're running a brand awareness campaign, longer time lags (that is, more days/hours to conversion) might be more appropriate. You can use this information to help you understand whether your campaigns are working the way that you expect them to, and to determine what conversion window is best for each conversion action.

'Avg. interactions to conversion'

To see how many interactions it takes for users to convert, select the Avg. interactions to conversion tab. You can use this view to see what kind of frequency is most valuable for driving conversions. Bear in mind, this report only reflects the keywords and ads in your Google Ads account, so if these paths of interactions seem shorter than you might expect, that's why.

The 'Assisted conversions' report

The 'Assisted conversions' report shows how often a certain network, campaign, ad group (or other dimension value) appeared on the conversion path. If an ad interaction (i.e. a click or YouTube Engaged-view conversion) helped with a conversion, but was not the ad interaction immediately preceding that conversion, it's called a 'click and view assist'. If an ad interaction occurred directly before a conversion, it's called a 'Last click conversion'. One conversion can be preceded by multiple assisting ad interactions, so you'll likely see more 'Click and view assists' than total conversions.

This report is a great resource to quickly identify which of your advertising efforts are helping to drive the most conversions. You may find that some keywords are the last click for very few conversions but actually assisted many conversions. In those instances, you may choose to test increasing investment for these keywords to see whether you can drive more conversions for your business.

The 'Model comparison' report

An attribution model is the rule, or set of rules, that determine how credit for conversions is assigned to steps on conversion paths. Learn more about the 'Model comparison' report and how to use attribution models in About attribution models.

Conversion data in attribution reports vs. 'Campaigns' page

There may be differences in conversion data between your attribution reports and the 'Campaigns' page. This is due to differences in how conversions are counted across networks, time of event and conversion sources.

Attribution reports can help you estimate how changes to your attribution model might impact conversion reporting. Conversions in the 'Campaigns' page can help you evaluate and optimise performance after you've changed your attribution model. You can also see past performance in attribution reports by using the 'current model' columns.

How reporting varies

Here's how conversions are reported differently in attribution reports vs. the 'Campaigns' page: