With so many possibilities available to advertisers, it can be challenging to sift through and figure out which ads are most effective in realizing their marketing goals. Marketers are finding difficulty pinpointing which ads should be discontinued, which need to be optimized and which need to be prioritized. This is where attribution models come in to play, because it’s next to impossible to run efficient and effective ads if the source of conversions is a guessing game. Users often interact with multiple ads before a conversion takes place and attribution models are used to assign how much credit each ad interaction receives. It is important to note that attribution modeling in Google Ads is only available for Search Network and Shopping ads. In this series we will dive into different attribution models.

The Time Decay model assigns more credit to ad interactions that happened more recently with diminishing credit for interactions as time passes. The assigning of credit is based on a 7-day half-life, meaning an interaction that take place 8 days before a conversion would receive half of the credit that an interaction 1 day before a conversion would receive. The strength of this model is that it can give insight into the functionality of the different ads in an advertiser’s strategy. Ads that lead to more conversions will become more visible and ads that users interact with early on still receive credit, allowing advertisers to prioritize and optimize their advertising strategies by using different ads in their most effective ways. The potential downside of this model is that because it is based on time, rather than the amount it might influence, it may misrepresent the importance of ad interactions on the path to conversion. If an automated bidding strategy such as Target CPA, ECPC, or Target ROAS is being used, the attribution model will influence the way bids are optimized. Google has a “Model Comparison” feature that allows for side by side comparison of different models.

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