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• 7 Best Marketing Attribution Software in 2024

  22 février 2024, par Erin

  It can be hard to accurately track the impact of your marketing efforts across marketing channels and campaigns. That’s where marketing attribution software comes in. 

  It goes beyond basic web analytics solutions that just look at the final click. Instead, it shows how different channels, content, and ads are performing at every step of the buyer’s journey, which gives a more accurate picture than just focusing on the last click.

  In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of marketing attribution, list the top marketing attribution software and explain how the issue of privacy is transforming the web analytics industry.

  What is marketing attribution ?

  Marketing attribution is the process of assigning credit to each touchpoint in a buyer’s journey that leads to a desired action (such as a conversion or sale) in order to understand the effectiveness of various marketing channels and campaigns in influencing the customer’s decision-making process.

  Marketers use software tools like website analytics to to track and analyse customer interactions across different touchpoints, allowing them to attribute conversions or sales to specific marketing efforts and optimise their strategies and budgets accordingly.

  Why is marketing attribution so important ?

  If you don’t track your campaigns correctly, it’s easy to spend thousands (or even millions) in an ineffective way. A 2022 survey by Australian marketing agency Next&Co revealed their clients wasted AU$5.46 billion in ineffective ad spend.

  

  That’s 41% of all the ad spend tracked by Next&Co in 2022. A wasted marketing spend percentage this high isn’t exactly a recipe for a high marketing return on investment (ROI). And yet, it’s the average.

  Why is that ? 

  Most companies don’t actively track the results of their marketing campaigns actively enough.

  By improving your marketing attribution, you can determine which channels, ads, and campaigns work and which don’t. Then, you can move the budget from ineffective channels to effective ones.

  Even if you can only identify half of your wastage, this could be 20% or more of your total spend. Just imagine what your bottom line would look like if your marketing budget were 20% more effective.

  That’s the power that marketing attribution, when done right, brings to the table. It’s the road to a higher marketing ROI.

  Common marketing attribution models and how they’re different 

  The default model for attributing completed goals in most analytics tools is either the last interaction or the last non-direct interaction.

  However, some multi-touch models can help you get a more holistic view of the impact of your marketing efforts.

  

  • Last interaction model : attributes the conversion to the final interaction or referring source (campaign or ad).
  • Last non-direct interaction model : attributes the conversion to the final touchpoint that was not a direct visit to your website. (For example, if a search ad took them to a product page, the user bookmarked it and returned directly the next day to finish the purchase. The credit would go to the search ad as it’s the last non-direct touchpoint.)
  • First interaction model : attributes the conversion to the first referring event alone.
  • Linear model : gives equal value to every touchpoint throughout the customer journey. 
  • Time decay model : gives more value to touchpoints the closer they were to the actual sale.
  • Position-based model : gives more value to the first and last touchpoints — often 40% each, while splitting 20% among the rest.

  You can read our guide dedicated to marketing attribution models for more details on these models.

  Types of marketing attribution software and the impact of privacy regulations

  Until recently, digital advertising was the “scientific” advertisers’ utopia. Everything could be measured, with cookies from giants like Google and Facebook stalking every user across the web.

  But with the advent of regulations like GDPR and the CCPA, you can no longer blindly trust Google Analytics or the Meta Pixel without consequences.

  Multi-channel attribution tools with third-party cookies and GDPR

  Google, Meta, and other companies used to track and combine user data from their own platforms and websites across the web that installed their tags. These third-party cookies have long been under fire and have caused several GDPR fines.

  

  The alternative : analytics platforms with first-party cookies

  In a post-GDPR digital marketing landscape, a compliant-by-default web analytics platform like Matomo is a more reliable and accurate alternative.

  Plus, with a platform like Matomo, you don’t need to rely on data from digital advertising platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads. You can accurately track referral sources using our campaign tracking parameters.

  7 best marketing attribution software in 2024

  Below is the list of our favourite marketing attribution tools in 2024. If you find and use one that suits your needs correctly, you can quickly boost your marketing performance.

  1. Matomo — Accurate and easiest to set up for marketing attribution

  Matomo is a privacy-friendly web analytics suite that empowers you to accurately attribute marketing efforts and gain valuable insights while prioritising user privacy and compliance.

  Matomo integrates with e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Magenta. That makes it easy for B2C marketing teams to track the revenue impact of their campaigns.

  

  You can also compare a variety of attribution models against each other. B2B teams can use our API to integrate Matomo with their CRM.

  Pros :

  • Relies on first-party cookies for tracking, ensuring accurate data collection and attribution of user actions
  • Includes additional features like Heatmaps, Session Recordings, Form Analytics, A/B Testing, and more
  • Easy to set up and use
  • Features most common multi-touch attribution models

  Cons :

  • Limited to owned channels (website and e-commerce store) due to first-party cookies and data (but you can integrate other data sources through a CRM)

  Pricing

  The self-hosted version is free. The cloud hosted version starts at $19 per month and includes a 21-day free trial. No credit card requierd. 

  Try Matomo for Free

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  2. WhatConverts — Great option for leads-based businesses with high ad spend

  WhatConverts is a marketing attribution tool with a focus on lead tracking. With most web analytics setups, it adds call and text tracking to the typical form-only tracking.

  

  Pros :

  • Reliable call and text tracking
  • Revenue attribution to specific leads (and, by extension, campaigns and ads)

  Cons :

  • Focused exclusively on leads — little utility for e-commerce companies 

  Pricing

  The cheapest plan starts at $30/month but does not include analytics integrations or form tracking. To access this and advanced flow tracking and attribution features, you need the Elite plan, which starts at $160/month.

  3. HubSpot Marketing Hub — Ideal CRM for larger B2B companies

  HubSpot is a marketing CRM with attribution features for tracking and analysis.

  

  The platform is very broad — encompassing CRM, email automation and other tools — which makes it challenging to use effectively. The price tag is also quite steep for smaller companies and marketing teams.

  Pros :

  • Concretely tracks revenue to multiple different touchpoints and marketing channels
  • Includes several different multi-touch attribution models
  • Allows offline conversion tracking

  Cons :

  • The price point is too high for smaller teams
  • Cam be difficult to set up effectively

  Pricing

  Since marketing attribution is only included in HubSpot Marketing Hub’s Professional and Enterprise plans, pricing starts at $800/month (paid annually). If you commit for a year but pay monthly, the price is $890/month for the professional plan. This goes up with additional add-ons and as your contacts increase as well. 

  4. ActiveCampaign — Good CRM option for small B2B companies

  ActiveCampaign is a CRM and marketing automation platform that can help you trace leads and revenue back to their source.

  

  Although it has a similar scope of features to HubSpot, it is more affordable and slightly easier to use for beginners.

  Pros :

  • Tracks sales revenue back to specific marketing touchpoints
  • Powerful marketing automation features

  Cons :

  • B2B companies may need to purchase two plans, one ActiveCampaign marketing and one CRM.

  Pricing

  Unlike HubSpot, ActiveCampaign offers a much more affordable plan, starting at $29/month billed annually (for up to 1,000 contacts). The marketing and sales CRM bundle starts at $93/month with up to five users.

  5. Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing — Ideal CRM for enterprises

  Salesforce is a robust and feature-rich CRM that many enterprises rely on for their sales teams.

  

  That makes Salesforce’s marketing attribution platform a logical choice for existing Salesforce users.

  Pros :

  • Uses prospect and sales data from CRM to attribute revenue
  • Revenue prediction analytics
  • Lead scoring to help your sales team focus on high-value leads

  Cons :

  • Difficult to set up and use
  • Clunky and aged user interface
  • Relatively high price point

  Pricing

  The limited Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Growth plan starts at $1,250/month, billed annually. To access advanced cross-channel journeys, you need the Pro plan, which starts at $2,750 monthly.

  6. Terminus — Great for account-based marketing

  If your marketing team uses an account-based marketing (ABM) approach, Terminus might be the right option for you.

  

  It offers ABM tools like target account event tracking and revenue attribution tools for your marketing campaigns.

  Pros :

  • Advanced multi-channel revenue attribution tools with a wide range of reports
  • Track intent touchpoints back to target accounts
  • Reliable revenue predictions help you focus your marketing activities

  Cons :

  • Complex and difficult to set up, understand and use effectively
  • Lacks native integrations with many common advertising platforms and analytics tools

  Pricing

  Terminus offers no standard pricing plans. You must contact their sales team for a custom quote based on your needs.

  7. Adobe Analytics — An analytics for enterprises

  Adobe Analytics is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, with plenty of big data analysis tools for enterprises. Although the platform is quite powerful, it is equally complex and difficult to use. The price point is also prohibitive for many smaller companies.

  

  Pros :

  • Very extensive reporting tools
  • Predictive analytics give you solid leading indicator for future campaign performance
  • Track multiple digital touchpoints across the entire customer journey

  Cons :

  • Like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics aggregates your visitor data by default, making compliant “consent-free tracking” — tracking user actions without asking for consent — impossible according to GDPR. (See more differences in Matomo’s comparison against Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics.)
  • Prohibitively expensive for most smaller companies
  • Very steep learning curve for setting up and using it correctly

  Pricing

  Adobe Analytics uses usage-based pricing — which means they adjust the pricing based on the traffic volume to your website. Still, their lower price points aren’t exactly SMB-friendly — multiple sources put Adobe’s lowest starting price point at $2,000–2,500 per month.

  Get accurate marketing attribution with Matomo (without privacy concerns)

  Matomo allows you to do marketing attribution effectively and accurately without compromising your users’ privacy. By default, we only use first-party cookies and offer consent-free tracking – meaning no more annoying cookie consent banners (excluding in Germany and the UK).

  If you want to boost your marketing performance without disregarding your users’ privacy, get started with our 21-day free trial. No credit card required. It’s time to make more informed decisions about your marketing campaigns.

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

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• How to Measure Marketing Effectiveness : A Step-by-Step Guide

  22 février 2024, par Erin

  Are you struggling to prove that your marketing efforts are having a measurable impact on your company’s performance ? We get it. 

  You would think that digital marketing would make it easier to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. But in many ways, it’s harder than ever. With so many channels and strategies competing against each other, it can feel impossible to pin down the campaign that caused a conversion. 

  That leaves you in a tricky spot as a marketing manager. It can be hard to know which campaigns to persevere with and harder still to prove your worth to stakeholders. 

  Thankfully, there are several strategies you can use to measure the success of your campaigns and put a value on your efforts. So, if you want to learn how you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing, improve the ROI of your efforts and prove your value as an employee, read on. 

  What is marketing effectiveness ?

  Marketing effectiveness measures how successful a marketing strategy or campaign is and the extent to which it achieves goals and business objectives.

  

  It’s a growing concern for brands, with research showing that 61.2% say measuring marketing effectiveness has become a more prominent factor in decision-making over the last three years. In other words, it’s becoming critical for marketers to know how to measure their effectiveness. 

  But it’s getting harder to do so. A combination of factors, including channel fragmentation, increasingly convoluted customer journeys, and the deprecation of third-party cookies, makes it hard for marketing teams to measure marketing performance. 

  Why you need to measure marketing effectiveness

  Imagine ploughing thousands of dollars into a campaign and not being confident that your efforts bore fruit. It’s unthinkable, right ? If you care about optimising campaigns and improving your worth as a marketer, measuring marketing effectiveness is necessary. 

  

  Optimise marketing campaigns

  Do you know how effectively each campaign generates conversions and drives revenue ? No ? Then, you need to measure marketing effectiveness.

  Doing so could also shine a light on ways to improve your campaigns. One paid ad campaign may suffer from a poor return on ad spend caused by high CPCs. Targeting less competitive keywords could dramatically reduce your costs. 

  Improve ROI

  Today, marketing budgets make up almost 10% of a company’s total revenue, up from 6.4% in 2021. With so much revenue at stake, you’ve got to deliver a return on that investment. 

  Measuring marketing effectiveness can help you identify the campaigns or strategies delivering the highest ROI so you can invest more heavily into them. On the other side of the same coin, you can use the data to strike off any campaigns that aren’t pulling their weight — increasing your ROI even further. 

  Demonstrate value

  Let’s get selfish for a second. Whether you’re an in-house marketing manager or work for an agency, the security of your paycheck depends on your ability to deliver high-ROI campaigns. 

  Measuring your marketing effectiveness lets you showcase your value to your company and clients. It helps you build stronger relationships that can lead to bigger and better opportunities in the future. 

  We should take this opportunity to point out that a good tool for measuring marketing effectiveness is equally important. You probably think Google Analytics will do the job, right ? But when you start implementing the strategies we discuss below, there’s a good chance you’ll have data quality issues. 

  That was the case for full-service marketing agency MHP/Team SI, which found Google Analytics’ data sampling severely limited the quantity and quality of insights they could collect. It was only by switching to Matomo, a platform that doesn’t use data sampling, that the agency could deliver the insights its clients needed to grow. 

  Further reading :

  • How to check website traffic as accurately as possible
  • 8 best tools to analyse website traffic

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  How to measure marketing effectiveness

  Measuring marketing effectiveness is not always easy, especially if you have long buying cycles and a lack of good-quality data. Make things as easy as possible by following the steps below :

  Know what success looks like

  You can’t tell whether your campaigns are effective if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve. That’s why the first step in measuring marketing effectiveness is to set a clear goal. 

  So, ask yourself what success looks like for each campaign you launch. 

  Remember, a campaign doesn’t have to drive leads to be considered effective. If all you wanted to do was raise brand awareness or increase organic traffic, you could achieve both goals without recording a single conversion. 

  We’d wager that’s probably not true for most marketing managers. It’s much more likely you want to achieve something like the following :

  • Generating 100 new customers
  • Increasing revenue by 20%
  • Selling $5,000 of your new product line
  • Reducing customer churn by 50%
  • Achieving a return on ad spend of 150%

  Conventional goal-setting wisdom applies here. So, ensure your goals are measurable, timely, relevant and achievable. 

  Track conversions

  Setting up conversion tracking in your web analytics platform is vital to measuring marketing effectiveness accurately. 

  What you count as a conversion event will depend on the goals you’ve set above. It doesn’t have to be a sale, mind you. Downloading an ebook or signing up for a webinar are worthy conversion goals, especially if you know they increase the chances of a customer converting. 

  

  Whichever platform you choose, ensure it can meet your current and future needs. This is one of the reasons open-source content management system Concrete CMS opted for Matomo when choosing a new website analytics platform. The flexibility of the Matomo platform gave Concrete CMS the adaptability it needed for future growth. 

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Decide on an attribution model

  Marketing attribution is a way of measuring the impact of different channels and touchpoints across the customer journey. If you can assign a value to each conversion, you can use a marketing attribution model to quantify the value of your channels and campaigns.

  While most web analytics platforms simply credit the last touchpoint, marketing attribution offers a more comprehensive view by considering all interactions along the customer journey. This distinction is important because relying solely on the last touchpoint can lead to skewed insights and misallocation of resources and budget. 

  By adopting a marketing attribution approach, you can make more informed decisions, optimizing your campaigns and maximizing your return on investment.

  

  There are several different attribution models you can use to give credit to your various campaigns. These include :

  • First interaction : Gives all the credit to the first channel in the customer journey.
  • Last interaction : Gives all the credit to the last channel in the customer journey.
  • Last non-direct attribution : Gives all credit to the final touchpoint in the customer journey, except for direct interactions. In those cases, credit is given to the touchpoint just before the direct one.
  • Linear attribution : Distributes credit equally across all touchpoints.
  • Position-based attribution : Attributes 40% credit to the first and last touchpoints and distributes the remaining 20% evenly across all other touchpoints. 

  Consider carefully which attribution model to use, as this can significantly impact your marketing effectiveness calculation by giving certain campaigns too much credit.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Analyse KPIs

  Tracking KPIs is essential if you want to quantify the impact of your marketing campaigns. But which metrics should you track ?

  To improve brand awareness or traffic, so-called vanity metrics like sessions, returning visitors, and organic traffic may suffice as KPIs. 

  However, that’s not going to be the case for most marketers, whose performance is tied to revenue and ROI. If that’s you, put vanity metrics to one side and focus on the following conversion metrics instead :

  • Conversion rate : the percentage of users who complete a desired action. 
  • Return on ad spend : the revenue earned for every dollar spent on a campaign.
  • Return on investment : a broader calculation than ROAS, typically calculated across all your marketing efforts. 
  • Customer lifetime value : the total amount a customer will spend throughout their relationship with your company.
  • Customer acquisition cost : the cost to acquire each customer on average.

  

  Your analytics platform and advertising tools should track most of these KPIs by default. Matomo, for instance, automatically calculates your conversion rate in the Goals report. 

  How to present your marketing effectiveness

  Calculating your marketing effectiveness is one thing, but it’s important to share this information with stakeholders — whether those are executives in your company or your agency’s clients. 

  Follow the steps below to create an insightful and compelling marketing report :

  • Set the scene. There’s no guarantee that the people reading your report will know your goals. So, add context at the start of the reporting by spelling out what you are trying to achieve and why. 
  • Select the right data. You don’t want to overwhelm the reader with facts and figures, but you do need to provide hard evidence of your success. Include the KPIs you used to measure your success and show how these have changed over time. You can also support your report with audience insights such as heatmaps or customer surveys.
  • Tell a story with your presentation. Give your presentation a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Start with what you want to achieve, describe how you plan to achieve it and end with the results. Support your story with graphs and other visual aids that hold your reader’s attention. 
  • Provide a concise summary. Not everyone will read your presentation cover to cover. With that in mind, provide a summary of your report at the start or end that shows what you achieved and quantifies your marketing effectiveness. 

  How to improve marketing effectiveness

  Don’t settle for simply measuring your marketing effectiveness. Use the following strategies to make future campaigns as effective as possible. 

  Understand customer behaviour

  More effective marketing campaigns start by deeply understanding your customers, who they are, and how they behave. This allows you to take an audience-first approach to your marketing efforts and design campaigns around the unique needs of your customers. 

  Gather as much first-party data as you can. Surveys, focus groups, and other market research techniques can help you learn more about who your customers are, but don’t disregard the quantitative data you can gather from your web analytics platform. 

  Using Heatmaps, Session Recordings and behavioural analytics tools, you can learn exactly how customers behave when they land on your site, where they focus their attention and which pages they look at first. 

  

  These insights can help you turn an average campaign into an exceptional one. For example, a heatmap may highlight the need to move CTA buttons above the fold to increase conversions. A session recording could pinpoint the problems users have when filling out your website’s forms. 

  Further reading :

  • What Is Behavioural Analytics & How Can It Improve Website Performance
  • 9 Form Optimisation Tips to Convert More Visitors
  • How to Increase Conversions with Form Analysis

  Optimise landing pages

  Developing a culture of testing and experimentation is a great way to improve your marketing effectiveness. Let’s dive into A/B testing.

  By tweaking various elements of your landing pages, you can squeeze every last conversion from your campaigns.

  

  We have a guide on conversion funnel optimisation, which we recommend you check out, but I’ll briefly list some of the optimisations you could test :

  • Making your CTAs actionable and compelling
  • Integrating images and videos
  • Adding testimonials and other forms of social proof
  • Reducing form fields

  Use a different attribution model

  It might be that some campaigns, strategies or traffic sources aren’t getting the love they deserve. By changing your attribution model, you can significantly change the perceived effectiveness of certain campaigns. 

  Let’s say you use a last-touch attribution model, for instance. Only the last channel customers will get credit for each conversion, meaning top-of-the-funnel campaigns like SEO may be deemed less effective than they are. 

  It’s why you must continually test, tweak and validate your chosen model — and why changing it can be so powerful. 

  Measure your marketing effectiveness with Matomo

  Measuring your marketing effectiveness is hard work. But it’s vital to optimise campaigns, improve your ROI and demonstrate your value. 

  The good news is that Matomo makes things a lot easier thanks to its comprehensive conversion tracking, attribution modelling capabilities and behavioural insight features like Heatmaps, A/B Testing and Session Recordings. 

  Take steps today to start measuring (and improving) the effectiveness of your marketing with our 21-day free trial. No credit card required.

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

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• Unveiling GA4 Issues : 8 Questions from a Marketer That GA4 Can’t Answer

  8 janvier 2024, par Alex

  It’s hard to believe, but Universal Analytics had a lifespan of 11 years, from its announcement in March 2012. Despite occasional criticism, this service established standards for the entire web analytics industry. Many metrics and reports became benchmarks for a whole generation of marketers. It truly was an era.

  For instance, a lot of marketers got used to starting each workday by inspecting dashboards and standard traffic reports in the Universal Analytics web interface. There were so, so many of those days. They became so accustomed to Universal Analytics that they would enter reports, manipulate numbers, and play with metrics almost on autopilot, without much thought.

  However, six months have passed since the sunset of Universal Analytics – precisely on July 1, 2023, when Google stopped processing requests for resources using the previous version of Google Analytics. The time when data about visitors and their interactions with the website were more clearly structured within the UA paradigm is now in the past. GA4 has brought a plethora of opportunities to marketers, but along with those opportunities came a series of complexities.

  GA4 issues

  Since its initial announcement in 2020, GA4 has been plagued with errors and inconsistencies. It still has poor and sometimes illogical documentation, numerous restrictions, and peculiar interface solutions. But more importantly, the barrier to entry into web analytics has significantly increased.

  If you diligently follow GA4 updates, read the documentation, and possess skills in working with data (SQL and basic statistics), you probably won’t feel any problems – you know how to set up a convenient and efficient environment for your product and marketing data. But what if you’re not that proficient ? That’s when issues arise.

  In this article, we try to address a series of straightforward questions that less experienced users – marketers, project managers, SEO specialists, and others – want answers to. They have no time to delve into the intricacies of GA4 but seek access to the fundamentals crucial for their functionality.

  Previously, in Universal Analytics, they could quickly and conveniently address their issues. Now, the situation has become, to put it mildly, more complex. We’ve identified 8 such questions for which the current version of GA4 either fails to provide answers or implies that answers would require significant enhancements. So, let’s dive into them one by one.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources on my website ?

  Seemingly a straightforward question. What does GA4 tell us ? It responds with a question : “Which traffic source parameter are you interested in ?”

  

  Wait, what ?

  People just want to know which resources bring them the most traffic. Is that really an issue ?

  Unfortunately, yes. In GA4, there are not one, not two, but three traffic source parameters :

  1. Session source.
  2. First User Source – the source of the first session for each user.
  3. Just the source – determined at the event or conversion level.

  If you wanted to open a report and draw conclusions quickly, we have bad news for you. Before you start ranking your traffic sources by popularity, you need to do some mental work on which parameter and in what context you will look. And even when you decide, you’ll need to make a choice in the selection of standard reports : work with the User Acquisition Report or Traffic Acquisition.

  Yes, there is a difference between them : the first uses the First User Source parameter, and the second uses the session source. And you need to figure that out too.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ?

  This question concerns everyone, and it should be simple, implying a straightforward answer. But no.

  

  In GA4, there are three conversion metrics (yes, three) :

  1. Session conversion – the percentage of sessions with a conversion.
  2. User conversion – the percentage of users who completed a conversion.
  3. First-time Purchaser Conversion – the share of active users who made their first purchase.

  If the last metric doesn’t interest us much, GA4 users can still choose something from the remaining two. But what’s next ? Which parameters to use for comparison ? Session source or user source ? What if you want to see the conversion rate for a specific event ? And how do you do this in analyses rather than in standard reports ?

  In the end, instead of an answer to a simple question, marketers get a bunch of new questions.

  Question 3. Can I trust user and session metrics ?

  Unfortunately, no. This may boggle the mind of those not well-versed in the mechanics of calculating user and session metrics, but it’s the plain truth : the numbers in GA4 and those in reality may and will differ.

  

  The reason is that GA4 uses the HyperLogLog++ statistical algorithm to count unique values. Without delving into details, it’s a mechanism for approximate estimation of a metric with a certain level of error.

  This error level is quite well-documented. For instance, for the Total Users metric, the error level is 1.63% (for a 95% confidence interval). In simple terms, this means that 100,000 users in the GA4 interface equate to 100,000 1.63% in reality.

  Furthermore – but this is no surprise to anyone – GA4 samples data. This means that with too large a sample size or when using a large number of parameters, the application will assess your metrics based on a partial sample – let’s say 5, 10, or 30% of the entire population.

  It’s a reasonable assumption, but it can (and probably will) surprise marketers – the metrics will deviate from reality. All end-users can do (excluding delving into raw data methodologies) is to take this error level into account in their conclusions.

  Question 4. How do I calculate First Click attribution ?

  You can’t. Unfortunately, as of late, GA4 offers only three attribution models available in the Attribution tab : Last Click, Last Click For Google Ads, and Data Driven. First Click attribution is essential for understanding where and when demand is generated. In the previous version of Google Analytics (and until recently, in the current one), users could quickly apply First Click and other attribution models, compare them, and gain insights. Now, this capability is gone.

  

  Certainly, you can look at the conversion distribution considering the First User Source parameter – this will be some proxy for First Click attribution. However, comparing it with others in the Model Comparison tab won’t be possible. In the context of the GA4 interface, it makes sense to forget about non-standard attribution models.

  Question 5. How do I account for intra-session traffic ?

  Intra-session traffic essentially refers to a change in traffic sources within a session. Imagine a scenario where a user comes to your site organically from Google and, within a minute, comes from an email campaign. In the previous version of Google Analytics, a new session with the traffic source “e-mail” would be created in such a case. But now, the situation has changed.

  A session now only ends in the case of a timeout – say, 30 minutes without interaction. This means a session will always have a source from which it started. If a user changes the source within a session (clicks on an ad, from email campaigns, and so on), you won’t know anything about it until they convert. This is a significant blow to intra-session traffic since their contribution to traffic remains virtually unnoticed. 

  Question 6. How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ?
  

  You can’t. Google Consent Mode settings imply several options when a user rejects the use of 3rd party cookies. In GA4 and BigQuery, depersonalized cookieless pings will be sent. These pings do not contain specific client_id, session_id, or other custom dimensions. As a result, you won’t be able to consider them as users or link the actions of such users together.

  Question 7. How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ?

  The maximum data retention period for a free GA4 account is 14 months. This means that if the date range is wider, you can only use standard reports. You won’t be able to compare or view cohorts or funnels for periods more than 14 months ago. This makes the product functionality less rich because various report formats in explorations are very convenient for comparing specific metrics in easily digestible reports.

  

  Of course, you always have the option to connect BigQuery and store raw data without limitations, but this process usually requires the involvement of an advanced analyst. And precisely this option is unavailable to most marketers in small teams.

  Question 8. Is the data for yesterday accurate ?

  Unknown. Google declares that data processing in GA4 takes up to 48 hours. And although this process is faster, most users still have room for frustration. And they can be understood.

  

  What does “data processing takes 24-48 hours” mean ? When will the data in reports be complete ? For yesterday ? Or the day before yesterday ? Or for all days that were more than two days ago ? Unclear. What should marketers tell their managers when they were asked if all the data is in this report ? Well, probably all of it… or maybe not… Let’s wait for 48 hours…

  Undoubtedly, computational resources and time are needed for data preprocessing and aggregation. It’s okay that data for today will not be up-to-date. And probably not for yesterday either. But people just want to know when they can trust their data. Are they asking for too much : just a note that this report contains all the data sent and processed by Google Analytics ?

  What should you do ?

  Credit should be given to the Google team – they have done a lot to enable users to answer these questions in one form or another. For example, you can use data streaming in BigQuery and work with raw data. The entry threshold for this functionality has been significantly lowered. In fact, if you are dissatisfied with the GA4 interface, you can organize your export to BigQuery and create your own reports without (almost) any restrictions.

  Another strong option is the widespread launch of GTM Server Side. This allows you to quite freely modify the event model and essentially enrich each hit with various parameters, doing this in a first-party context. This, of course, reduces the harmful impact of most of the limitations described in this text.

  But this is not a solution.

  The users in question – marketers, managers, developers – they do not want or do not have the time for a deep dive into the issue. And they want simple answers to simple (it seemed) questions. And for now, unfortunately, GA4 is more of a professional tool for analysts than a convenient instrument for generating insights for not very advanced users.

  Why is this such a serious issue ?

  The thing is – and this is crucial – over the past 10 years, Google has managed to create a sort of GA-bubble for marketers. Many of them have become so accustomed to Google Analytics that when faced with another issue, they don’t venture to explore alternative solutions but attempt to solve it on their own. And almost always, this turns out to be expensive and inconvenient.

  However, with the latest updates to GA4, it is becoming increasingly evident that this application is struggling to address even the most basic questions from users. And these questions are not fantastically complex. Much of what was described in this article is not an unsolvable mystery and is successfully addressed by other analytics services.

  Let’s try to answer some of the questions described from the perspective of Matomo.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources ? [Solved]

  In the Acquisition panel, you will find at least three easily identifiable reports – for traffic channels (All Channels), sources (Websites), and campaigns (Campaigns). 

  

  With these, you can quickly and easily answer the question about the most popular traffic sources, and if needed, delve into more detailed information, such as landing pages.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ? [Solved]

  Under Goals in Matomo, you’ll easily find the overall conversion rate for your site. Below that you’ll have access to the conversion rate of each goal you’ve set in your Matomo instance.

  

  Question 3 : Can I trust user and session metrics ? [Solved]

  Yes. With Matomo, you’re guaranteed 100% accurate data. Matomo does not apply sampling, does not employ specific statistical algorithms, or any analogs of threshold values. Yes, it is possible, and it’s perfectly normal. If you see a metric in the visits or users field, it accurately represents reality by 100%.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 4 : How do I calculate First Click attribution ? [Solved]
  
  You can do this in the same section where the other 5 attribution models, available in Matomo, are calculated – in the Multi Attribution section.

  

  You can choose a specific conversion and, in a few clicks, calculate and compare up to 3 marketing attribution models. This means you don’t have to spend several days digging through documentation trying to understand how a particular model is calculated. Have a question – get an answer.

  Question 5 : How do I account for intra-session traffic ? [Solved]

  Matomo creates a new visit when a user changes a campaign. This means that you will accurately capture all relevant traffic if it is adequately tagged. No campaigns will be lost within a visit, as they will have a new utm_campaign parameter.

  This is a crucial point because when the Referrer changes, a new visit is not created, but the key lies in something else – accounting for all available traffic becomes your responsibility and depends on how you tag it.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 6 : How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ? [Solved]

  Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner with “analytics_storage=granted” to track them. If users reject cookie consent banners, however, then Google Analytics can’t track these visitors at all. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports. 

  Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany) and can therefore continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen. This is achieved through a config_id variable (the user identifier equivalent which is updating once a day). 

  

  This means that virtually all of your website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner or not.

  Question 7 : How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ? [Solved]
  

  There is no limitation on data retention for your aggregated reports in Matomo. The essence of Matomo experience lies in the reporting data, and consequently, retaining reports indefinitely is a viable option. So you can compare data for any timeframe. 7