Understanding the true value that the display channel brings to your business can be challenging, especially when understanding the return on investment it brings and then explaining this to stakeholders. 

Given that the display channel is typically seen early on in the conversion journey, it doesn’t perform well when measured on a last click attribution model. There are typically other channels, such as paid or organic search that come later on in the conversion journey and would take credit for the conversion under last-click. The path to conversion often involves multiple touch points across the journey, with potential customers engaging with your brand via a number of channels before converting. 

Fortunately there are a couple of native reports in Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) that can help you to understand display’s role in your marketing funnel. These two reports sit as part of Google Analytics Multi Channel Funnel reporting.   

Model Comparison Tool

The model comparison tool can be found under Multi Channel Funnels -> Top Conversion Paths.

• It groups your acquisition sources by channel, and will help you to understand the number of conversions and acquisition costs (CPA/ROAS) by channel. From there you can compare attribution models between channels to understand the impact that running a different attribution model would have on the distribution of conversion credit across your marketing channels 

• Ensure to select only conversions of interest (e.g. Transactions), under the Conversion Type.

You May Want to Run Display on the Google Ads Tag

• The tool can help you to understand if it would be worth running your bidding on a separate bid strategy. For example if under the last click attribution model you can see that Display is under valued compared with Last Google Ads Click, e.g. reporting significantly fewer conversions, then it might be worth running your Google Ads Display bidding on the Google Ads tag, rather than the Google Analytics Tag. 

• You can also compare conversion paths in the conversion paths report, and if Display often appears before another Google Ads source/medium (e.g Paid Search), then it woud be worth bidding to the Google Ads tag for Display. Whilst this is not ideal for reporting as you would be duplicating conversions, it is more optimal for the bidding, as the Google Ads bid strategy would have more conversions to optimise towards

First Interaction vs. Last Click

• Another useful comparison is between first interaction and last click. If a channel has significantly more conversions on first interaction compared with last click, then you can deduce that the channel is important for customers first engagement with your brand. Without that initial interaction they may not have come into contact with your brand.

• These channels are traditionally more upper funnel (e.g Video, Display), but this can vary depending on how you use the medium and so varys by business. As Youtube is being used more so for performance advertising it’s not uncommon to see the channel as the last click before conversion 

Top Conversion Paths 

The top conversion paths report can also be found under Multi Channel Funnels -> Top Conversion Paths.

• It will help you to understand your overall channel mix, and the channel paths that lead to conversions

• It will also help you to understand how different channels interact in order to drive a conversion, i.e does the display channel help to start a conversion path, or help push a user further down the path by sitting in the middle

• It will also help to visualise the channels that frequently interact with display to deliver conversions

• When setting up the report, ensure the following:

  • Only select the conversions that you’re optimising for with your display activity - e.g Transactions

  • It’s best to use a custom channel grouping in order to ensure that your channel grouping is as useful as possible for your business e.g you might want to break out Display into channels that could be considered display e.g Google Discovery Ads, or Native (e.g Taboola). Or conversely you may want to split them up if it’s valuable for your analysis 

Understanding how to use these reports will give you a clearer view of the contribution of different acquisition channels on the path to conversion and ensure that you’re using appropriate bidding strategies within each of your platforms

Using them wisely will also help you to explain the overall value that a channel delivers to your business and so represents a useful tool in your arsenal. 

Links

• https://analytics.googleblog.com/2013/06/see-full-impact-of-unclicked-display.html

• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/search/shift-to-constant-connectivity/

• https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1191180?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article