Attribution: Is GA4 all you need? with Jill Quick (episode 138)
by April Buencamino-dyJill Quick is an analytics consultant and trainer at The Coloring In Department. Originally a client-side marketer, she’s been helping brands of all sizes to get to grips with their measurement strategy since 2011. We’re all starting to get to grips with GA4 – but is it all we need?
Listen now for free:
Subscribe to Keep Optimising on your favourite Podcast App
Creating your Measurement Strategy
Understanding your attribution needs
When starting out, you first have to identify the problems in your business that you want solved. Ask yourself questions that will help you understand what kind of measurement strategy you’ll need.
Knowing why you need the data, what the data presents, and what kind of reports you need to show your stakeholders is going to give you a clearer picture of the problem you need to solve with your marketing attribution.
Building your marketing attribution solution
When you already have an understanding of what your attribution needs are, you can begin creating your measurement strategy and thinking of the right analytics solution to achieve your goals.
For Jill, core fundamentals are key. Get the basic setup right so you can get the right data from it.
Key GA4 Report: User Acquisition Report
The user acquisition report shows you all of your default channel groupings, sources, campaigns, and users, among others.
However, this user acquisition report only shows new users, and the attribution model gives credit to the first touch point. It also presents to you what it was that got the new users into that first channel.
Key GA4 Report: Traffic Acquisition Report
The traffic acquisition report gives 100% of the credit to the last touch point and gives you insight on how your users came to be on your site.
This information can help you make decisions about marketing campaigns and also help you understand what’s working in your existing marketing efforts.
Getting your data right in the first place
You really need to get your fundamentals right and track your campaigns properly, especially for eCommerce brands.
Ask yourself questions about the data you’re getting and find out which ones you don’t trust and why. Then go into your admin settings and check your collection and configuration, because they make or break everything.
Referral exclusion is a key element, and this is basically telling Google to exclude any traffic from specific sources. Another is tagging marketing properly and making sure the right rules are being used.
Insider Tips
If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with marketing attribution – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
In general, start off by going through the fundamentals of tracking things and understanding the reports you get out of the box. When it comes to attribution, learn UTM tagging.
Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve marketing attribution performance?
Find out what your priorities are for the next quarter and know what kind of activities you’ll need to do to achieve them, based on the data that you have.
If someone listening wants to learn more about marketing attribution is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?
Jill gives us several recommendations:
- Dana DiTomaso’s GA4 course on LinkedIn Learning
- Learning Google Analytics: Creating Business Impact and Driving Insights by Mark Edmondson
- Google resources and videos
Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in marketing attribution?
Jill says to get ready for BigQuery and the new skill set that you’ll need for this. Get it on your people’s radar and begin your journey today, because acquiring the new skills will benefit you in the long run.
Interview Links
- Check out The Coloring in Department
- Q4 Updates: The Only Google Analytics 4 Advice you need with Dan Coleman (episode 111)
Jill on Social media:
Sponsored by…
Transform Your Data Into Growth
Triple Whale is the Smart Data Platform.
Manage analytics, attribution, and creative for your Shopify store in one place.
Triple Whale brings the metrics that matter most into one easy-to-use dashboard, giving you the real-time insights you need to grow your brand.
Find out more and book a demo here
