Multiple Last Touch Channels

[franzli]

I have a workspace where I have singled out 1 visit and I see multiple Last Touch Channels. 

Could anyone give me an explanation how this could happen?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Technically, a visit has a 30 min timeout.. so a user could open a link from a newsletter (start of visit, and direct or newsletters Marketing Channel), then they could open another tab in Social Media and click through (same visit, new Marketing Channel), then they could do a Google Search (same visit, third new Marketing Channel).

[franzli]

Thanks for the reply.

I am familiar with marketing channels and a session can have multiple marketing channels. 

But wouldn't last touch still be the last marketing channel? So it would be "Google Search" based on that user journey.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

"Last Touch" doesn't retroactively overwrite previous values....

So let's look at the example above in more detail:

• Newsletter
• Page A
  • Marketing Channel: Newsletter
• Page B
  • Last Touch Marketing Channel is Newsletter
• Social Media Site
• Page C
  • Marketing Channel: Organic Social
• Page D
  • Last Touch Marketing Channel is Organic Social
• Page E
  • Last Touch Marketing Channel is Organic Social
• Google
• Page F
  • Marketing Channel: Search
• Page G
  • Last Touch Marketing Channel is Search

Pages A and B in the Visit are Last Touch Newsletter

Pages C, D and E are Last Touch Organic Social

Pages F and G are Last Touch Search

So you will still see all three Marketing Channels within your visit, the "Last Touch" will impact at a page level

Now, if you are looking at "First Touch" within a visit, then the first reported Marketing Channel for the Visit will show Newsletter

[franzli]

This is very clear thanks for taking the time to explain!

So to confirm, Last Touch is a page-level metric and not a session-level metric.

So based on what you mentioned. In one visit, what I'm seeing here is Last Touch Channel have 2 values because a user could have potentially gone through this journey:

1. Affiliate Entry

- Visited several pages
(Last Touch would have been saved on a page level which is Affiliate)

2. Opened another tab, Referring Domain Entry
- Visited Several pages

- Purchased

(Last touch would have been saved on  a page level which is Referring Domain)

Therefore when combining and looking at a session as a whole, it can have 2 values since they are page-level metrics.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You're very welcome. Attribution models like this can be really hard to visualize / understand, so I try to outline it in simple visuals to really help build understanding.

[jeff_bloomer]

Hi @franzli,

@Jennifer_Dungan's answer is spot on, because of the behavior of Visits.  Taking this into account, you may consider looking into changing your attribution model against your metric, depending upon your needs.

This article may provide some additional insights to assist you:
Understanding Adobe Analytics attribution panel and lookback windows