How does sequential segment impact last touch channel?

[user70977]

I have a sequential segment set up at the visitor container for page a then page b. I then look at the number of visitors with that segment and break it down by last touch channel. How should we interpret the number of visitors from each channel? I am seeing that a few channels have almost the same # of visitors as the aggregate number of the visitors. Does that mean this 1 visitor came from multiple channels when they visited page a then b? How is that possible since I thought we are looking at last touch, only the last touch channel should get attribution.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Well, first, your VISITOR segment is returning all data for the users that in the reporting period saw page A then B (this includes visits before and after this sequence.. the sequence may not even be in the same visit... they may have seen Page A on Feb 1 and Page B on Feb 26, and all page views, from all visits, for the matching visitor will appear in your report).

So your visitor is likely to have interacted with multiple channels during your reporting period.

Last Touch doesn't overwrite values... it just means the last value carried is carried forward until a new value is set, or it expires,

For example:

Visit 1:

• Page X (direct from Google Search Result)
  • Marketing Channel set to "organic search"
  • Marketing Channel Detail set to "google"
  • Marketing Channel Instance triggered (as a value is explicitly set)
• Page Y
  • Marketing Channel retains value "organic search" (persisted value) (the last touched value)
  • Marketing Channel Detail retains value "google"
  • Marketing Channel Instance not triggered (as a value is only persisted)

Visit 2:

• Page W (Direct)
  • Marketing Channel retains value "organic search" (persisted value) (Direct will NOT override a specific channel) (the last touched value that is counted)
  • Marketing Channel Detail retains value "google"
  • Marketing Channel Instance not triggered (as a value is only persisted)

Visit 3:

• Page N (from Marketing Email with ?cid=x)
  • Marketing Channel set to "marketing email"
  • Marketing Channel Detail set to "x"
  • Marketing Channel Instance triggered (as a value is explicitly set)
• Page A
  • Marketing Channel retains value "marketing email" (persisted value) (the last touched value)
  • Marketing Channel Detail retains value "x"
  • Marketing Channel Instance not triggered (as a value is only persisted)

Visit 4:

• Page M (from Social Media)
  • Marketing Channel set to "social media"
  • Marketing Channel Detail set to "instaface"
  • Marketing Channel Instance triggered (as a value is explicitly set)
• Page B
  • Marketing Channel retains value "social media" (persisted value) (the last touched value)
  • Marketing Channel Detail retains value "instaface"
  • Marketing Channel Instance not triggered (as a value is only persisted)

Visit 5:

• Page Q (from newsletter with ?cid=stuff)
  • Marketing Channel set to "newsletter"
  • Marketing Channel Detail set to "stuff"
  • Marketing Channel Instance triggered (as a value is explicitly set)
• (User does a google search, and comes back in as part of the same session
• Page V (from organic search)
  • Marketing Channel set to "organic search"
  • Marketing Channel Detail set to "google"
  • Marketing Channel Instance triggered (as a value is explicitly set)

All of these visits happened within your reporting window for this user... the user has been matched due to Page A (in Visit 3) followed by Page B (in Visit 4)...

All 5 visits will appear in your report, these 5 visits all have different channels and thus will show up in your report...

• 3 visits belong to "organic search" (since Direct does not override specific channels, one of these visits has 2 channels)
• 1 visit belongs to "marketing email"
• 1 visit belongs to "social media"
• 1 visit belongs to "newsletter"

You see 6 visits here (despite there being 5 visits), because this is looking at a row level, but the total visits will be de-duplicated.

		Page Views	Visits	Marketing Channel Instance
Marketing Channels		9	5	5
	organic search	4	3	2
	marketing email	2	1	1
	social media	2	1	1
	newsletter	1	1	1

[Josh__Stephens]

As Jen mentioned, the Visitor segments pull in everything and it can be hard to filter down to exactly what you're wanting sometimes.  I'm not certain this will give you what you're wanting but might be worth a shot.  Notice I changed "Include Everyone" to "Only After Sequence"  And I added an exclusion for any page events or page views that happen after Page B.