Direct Override Last-Touch Channel Implications

[JayGr]

One of our business units has their marketing channels set up with Direct Load as a channel and with it checked to Override Last Touch Channel.

I know this goes against Adobe's best practices, but what are the implications of having it set up this way? What does this do to your data?

Some in the business believe that it simply prevents the next session from getting attributed to another channel when its a Direct entry, but I would assume just using default attribution metrics would do this. So are we actually doing something else or more when we have Direct checked to Override Last-Touch Channel?

[FarazHusain]

Hey @JayGr, This should help - https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-analytics-questions/override-last-touch-chann...It is a best practice to uncheck the override last-touch option for Direct and Internal channels, so that they can’t take credit from other persisting last touch channels (or each other).

For example, If a user made his First ever visit via Paid Search and later came to the site via Direct(Override last-touch channel not checked) made a conversion, Direct will NOT be able to override Paid search as  "Override last-touch channel" is not checked for Direct and the conversion will be attributed to Paid search only.

But if this is checked, Direct would steal the credit for this purchase. So, it depends on the use case, if you want to have a direct channel attributed for such conversion or if you want to see an attribution from a more meaningful last touch channel.

[JayGr]

Hi Faraz,

Thank you. I've read this example already. But ours is the reverse as the image (having Direct checked) so that's why I wanted more specific clarification.

So for example, let's say I started a visit with an Affiliate, added an item to my cart, opened a new tab and entered the site directly and purchased, then my order would be credited to Direct Load and not Affiliate?

And then what does it mean by "override"? Should I still see my first hit credited to Direct Load, or should the data say my first hit was credited to Direct Load?

I'm trying to get clarification because the latter is what looks like happens when I test it myself. In this example, I entered on a link from Rakuten on the Home Page, and then opened a new tab with a link to our Program Guide. But I want to know this is expected Adobe behavior when I've got this checked and not just a random glitch during my test session.

And what about my next visit? If I enter via Direct, using default attribution metrics, wouldn't that still say Direct even if I didn't have Override checked? That's the primary reason the business wants this checked.

[FarazHusain]

Let's understand this by below example:

Visit 1: I started a visit with an Affiliate, added an item to my cart -

Hit 1: Affiliate - First Touch, Affiliate - Last Touch
Hit 2: Both first touch and last touch will persist

Next, the user opened a new tab and entered the site directly and purchased:

Let's say this happened on the 3rd hit:

Then on Hit 3: Fist Touch - Affiliate but Direct - Would Override Last Touch, which was Affiliate in our case (if we have Last Touch Override checked and if it satisfies your Direct Marketing Channel criteria).

Later, let's say the user returned to the site using some email campaign and I have some rule that qualifies my email marketing channel, then -

Visit 2: First Touch - Affiliate, Last Touch - Direct (Persisting)

Hit 1: First Touch - Affiliate, Last Touch - Email (if the marketing channel processing rule criteria match and Email is set to override other channels)

If the  Last Touch Override was unchecked for Direct, and you made a purchase, then Last Touch would have remained Affiliate. 

Usually, Direct has a definition - Referrer doesn't exist and is the first hit of the visit, and with this definition plus the override last touch channel unchecked, Direct would be only set if the user doesn't have any last touch channel set/persisting.

[JayGr]

I totally understand your examples, but I'm not really talking about first or last touch attribution. I'm talking about the default dimension with no attribution. My question is what I would expect in the same session (non attributed) metrics. If hit 1 is Affiliate, but hit 3 is Direct, and I have override checked, should my same session (non attributed) channel be Direct or Affiliate?

As you can see in my earlier image, it seems like it overrode hit 1 to say Direct even though at the time hit 1 was Affiliate. So I really want some official confirmation of how that works. The link on the ? mark sends you to a dead web page so that's no help.

Somewhat related, it does seem that this setting causes last click attribution to die. Our non-attributed metrics essentially match any and every last touch attribution model rendering them useless for additional analysis.

And I've attached this report suite's direct rules (at the bottom of the processing rules list).

[FarazHusain · Accepted solution]

Hey @JayGr, The default ‘Marketing channel’ dimension functions identically to the ‘Last touch channel’ dimension only, so in a way, you are looking at the Last Touch Channel report. Yes, if hit 1 is Affiliate, but hit 3 is Direct, and you have override checked, in the same session channel would be overridden to direct. We can take a more deeper look of your setup and report, if you can log a support ticket to and we can cross validate this with the backend data as well and share more detailed analysis.