I arrived at work this morning, opened my inbox, and quelle surprise! a lovely treat from Google sitting right there!
Google Analytics have announced that the look-back period within the Multi-Channel Funnel reports have been extended to 90 days before conversions, up from the previous limit of 30 days. While this may not seem like a big change, it will in fact give you far deeper insights in to how customers interact with your website.
What do Multi-channel funnels actually do?
Multi-channel funnels (MCF) take web analytics beyond last-click analysis and show you how your marketing channels work together on a customers journey to conversion.
They allow you to see each of the touch points you had with your visitors before they purchased through e-commerce or completed a goal.
Multi-channel funnels can really help you understand your cross channel marketing efforts and should become a valuable tool in your data analysis toolbox.
Insights Insights Insights
Path Length
Path length shows you the number of interactions a customer had with your website before purchasing. With the new 90 day look-back window the Path length report has changed substantially for some of our clients. In the example below you can clearly see that this extra 60 days of data has changed our outlook on how customers interacted with this site.
We can clearly see that the limited 30 day period had missed many interactions and were being classified as new visitors, rather than seeing that they had visited the site in the past. This new information will make our marketing more accountable - when previously we thought people were looking at the site and purchasing within a few steps, they were in fact loyal fans returning and had many touch points with this brand.
Similar insights will be found across all the other MCF reports too, I’m now going to dig around with the Assisted Conversion report to see what I can find to improve this clients digital marketing campaign.
Assisted Conversions
Straight away I’ve noticed one valuable piece of information, with a 30 day look-back window, we had zero Assisted Conversions from our Email campaigns, switching that to a 90 day look-back and we can see that emails sent a few months ago are still influencing purchases today! months after they were originally sent! - another crucial insight that email campaigns are helping and should be attributed correctly!
If you have spotted any great examples or would like us to look at your account, get in touch in the comments below.
