Market Ruler HelpConversionRuler Report Settings (Action Attribution)
The Action Attribution report settings allows you to choose how actions are matched with landings in your report.
The options are:
- First landing: Match actions to the first landing for visitors
- Most Recent landing: Match actions to the most recent landing for visitors
To demonstrate the difference between these two, here's a fictional example of activity on a web site:
| Date | Visitor A | Visitor B |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 1 | Landing: dog food | Landing: cat food |
| Jan 2 | Order: $35.00 | - |
| Jan 3 | Landing: gourmet dog food | Order: $42.00 |
| Jan 4 | Order: $46.00 | - |
Visitor A made two purchases, Visitor B made only one.
When reporting using First landing, a visitor's first landing is assigned to its associated action. I this example, it would produce a report similar to:
| Keyword | Landings | Orders | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| cat food | 1 | 1 | $42.00 |
| dog food | 1 | 2 | $81.00 |
| gourmet dog food | 1 | - | - |
When reporting using Most recent landing, a visitor's action is matched with the most recent landing. I this example, it would produce a report similar to:
| Keyword | Landings | Orders | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| cat food | 1 | 1 | $42.00 |
| dog food | 1 | 1 | $35.00 |
| gourmet dog food | 1 | 1 | $46.00 |
When do I use this?
The difference between Most recent landing and First landing really is related to how you spend your marketing dollars.
Most search engines report Most recent landings when the deliver performance reports, as they are concerned with the short-term ROI for your marketing campaigns.
However, the long-term ROI is equally important and should not be overlooked. Spending money on a campaign which performs year after year is important for long-term customer understanding.
In general:
- First landing shows long-term marketing campaigns performance
- Most recent landing shows short-term marketing campaigns performance
Balancing the two can improve your overall ROI.