Marketing Channel Expiration

[schmisajoe82]

Hi guys,

some years ago, we have set our marketing channel expiration to "never" instead of the 30 days inactivity default.

The reasons: We focus on last-touch reportings and we would always know via which channel the customer originally came to our site.

So when I understand correctly, "never" in this case means that the the visitor’s engagement period does not expire and the first-touch channel NEVER changes. 

I wonder which implications this has on our understanding of the customer's interaction with our markeing channels.

Does this setting have any impact on the lookback windows of Attribution IQ?

Let's say a customer visited my online shop 1 year ago via the marketing channel SEA. She ordered something. She came back 40 days ago via the marketing channel Social Media. She again ordered something. She came back via the marketing channel "SEO" 20 days ago and again, she ordered something.

For the reporting, I use Marketing Channels as a dimension and Orders as the success metric AND I select the non-default first-touch attribution model with a lookback window of 30 days.

• To which marketing channel would Adobe assign the order(s)?
• Does Attribution IQ work independently from the settings of the marketing channel expiration?

[Ishan_Sinha_ · Accepted solution]

@schmisajoe82 - Attribution IQ does not work independently of the settings of the marketing channel expiration. Attribution IQ is unintuitive in nature. With Attribution IQ, the credit for any success event will only be given to the channel that had an instance during the reporting window. If a channel persisted through the reporting window and it didn't have an instance, the credit will be given to "None".

So, within the lookback window of 30 days, the channel "SEO" will be considered as the first touch/last touch - hence given credit.

You may want to also refer to best practices of Attribution IQ + Marketing Channels: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/components/marketing-channels/mchannel-best-practi.... #4 mentions that it's recommended to have minimum visitor expiration period to minimize its effect on the Attribution IQ (to ensure channels don't persist).

Hope that helps!

[schmisajoe82]

Thank you, @Ishan_Sinha_! That helps!

Just a little side question: Do you know any case in which the settings of the marketing channel expiration impact Attribution IQ? I mean, persisting channels without any instances won't be counted and won't be given any credit. And the first-touch instance within the lookback window will be given the first-touch credit no matter what happened before.