Problem with Google Hotel Finder Ads and Paid Search Detection

[carolink5847856]

We just started a test, where we use Googles Hotel Finder Ads. These ads should be tracked as marketing channel "Metasearcher" based on the tracking link which includes "Metasearcher". What we are seeing right now is that the traffic gets both assigned to Metasearcher and Paid Search (SEM). For example we have 210 visits, 207 visits for last touch metasearcher and 81 visits for last touch SEM.

Header 1	Header 2
Total	210
Metasearcher	207
SEM	81

Question 1: How is it possible that a visit is assigned to several marketing channels? In my understanding the marketing channel processing rules are hierarchical.

Question 2: Our paid search detection rule is based on the existance of a tracking parameter in the URL. We suppose that the visits get assigned to paid search because the visit has google.com as referring domain + a tracking link. Is it possible to keep the hotel finder ads out of paid search via the processing rules without changing the paid search detection rule?

Thanks for your help!

[jantzen_b]

Gigazelle​ - Is this something you have any information on? I'm not sure there is much from Core Services. It looks like this might be a question to do with Marketing Channels and Google.

[Gigazelle · Accepted solution]

Visits can have multiple channels tied to them. For example, if they use the hotel finder, hit the back button, then click on a natural search link to your site, that would be a visit to both channels.

However when it comes to success events, that has a 1:1 relationship since there's only 1 last touch channel at the time of the success event.

[Alexis_Cazes_]

I would advise you to read this articles about marketing channels:

Refresher on Adobe Analytics' Marketing Channels Reports: Part I | Adobe Blog

Refresher on Adobe Analytics’ Marketing Channels Reports: Part II | Adobe Blog

Refresher on Adobe Analytics' Marketing Channels Reports: Part III | Adobe Blog

Refresher on Adobe Analytics' Marketing Channels Reports: Part IV | Adobe Blog

This might be useful to you:

Disabling Last-Touch Attribution for a Channel

In the Marketing Channel Manager, you have the ability to override the last-touch allocation for channels. There are a couple of common scenarios where this might make sense. I’ll use an ecommerce site example to highlight each scenario.

In the first scenario, a visitor comes to your site from a paid search ad and then comes back the next day by typing in your URL and makes a purchase. Without disabling the override option for the direct channel, the paid search channel wouldn’t receive credit for this order under the last-touch attribution model.

In the second scenario, a visitor also comes to your site from a paid search ad and is about to complete a transaction on your site when she gets called away to answer an urgent phone call. When this individual returns to her computer to complete her order an hour later, the 30-minute timeout window means the session refresh channel will receive credit for the purchase unless the allocation override is disabled.

In both of these scenarios, what’s fair to the channels? How do you want Marketing Channels to handle the last-touch allocation? Without disabling the last-touch allocation override, the direct and session refresh channels will receive credit instead of the paid search channel in the two scenarios above. Most companies prefer the paid search channel to get credit for these orders instead of the “artificial” channels. Hopefully, these examples help illustrate the impact of the override feature and help you to decide what’s best for your company’s unique circumstances.