Advanced Metrics

Welcome to the final chapter of our guide to Adobe Analytics for SEO! In Chapter One, we took you through the differences between Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics and showed you how to set up a basic SEO report. In Chapter Two, we guided you through ensuring your Adobe Analytics implementation is set up correctly, and walked you through some additional elements to add to your SEO dashboard from Chapter One. In this chapter, we’ll go through two advanced Adobe Analytics topics: Custom eVars and Attribution IQ. Then, we’ll close with some final dashboard recommendations.

Let’s get started!

eVars: An alternative to the Marketing Channel setup

If you’ve been following along, we left off talking about Marketing Channels and the Marketing Channel Wizard in Chapter Two. For a quick refresher, Marketing Channels is the Adobe Analytics equivalent to the Google Analytics Default Channel Groupings. The Marketing Channel Wizard will guide you through setting up your marketing channels for success.

That being said, we would be remiss if we didn’t discuss some alternatives to the Marketing Channel setup. For example, some Adobe Analytics implementations use eVars and/or the campaign variable to track SEO traffic. This is done via custom code and is usually because:

1. The implementation has been around for a while and pre-dates the introduction of Marketing Channels; or

2. The company has specific requirements and wants more control over the data.

If this is your situation, we highly recommend working with your Adobe Analytics implementation team to understand how SEO traffic is being detected and which eVars are being populated.

In the case of an eVar or a campaign variable, the last value will always receive credit in the standard attribution model. Note: Adobe has many other attribution models that we cover in Attribution IQ below.

Tip: When given the option and whenever possible, we recommend sticking with Adobe Analytics Marketing Channel setup. They will not interfere with any other setup and are much easier to understand and maintain than a custom solution. If you’re at the stage where Marketing Channels do not meet your needs, only then would we recommend a more advanced custom option.

Attribution modelling

Attribution modeling is key to understanding the contribution of SEO traffic to your website’s goal. Think about your own web usage. Say you need some new sneakers. What does your purchase journey look like?

Perhaps first, you do a broad search for sneakers. Nike has a paid ad right at the top of the SERPs, and you click it. You browse around, put a couple of sneakers in the cart that you like, and you even sign up for their mailing list, but you ultimately decide to stop shopping and close your laptop for the day. One week later, you have an email in your inbox with a 30% off coupon. You click the link and arrive back on the website. You shop around a little more but still can’t decide. Finally, three days later, you’re ready to purchase. You do a Google search for “Nike” and click on their organic listing. You finally buy those sneakers you’ve been eyeing.

See? The user journey is not often straightforward. Now consider this question: which marketing channel gets credit for your purchase? You arrived on the site through paid first, then you went back to the site via email, and lastly, you arrived on the site organically. Luckily, with Attribution IQ, you can look at this shopping scenario in a few different ways to better understand your customer.

Let’s talk about the most common attribution models and lookback windows, the two critical parts to attribution modeling.

Attribution IQ

With Marketing Channels, Adobe gave you the ability to compare two attribution models: First Touch and Last Touch. (We used them in our dashboard in Chapter Two). Many companies still use these two variables in their channel reporting, but in 2018, Adobe introduced “Attribution IQ” to extend attribution to all variables (not just Marketing Channels) along with new models.

Adobe Analytics currently offers ten out-of-the-box attribution models (along with a custom option), but the following four are the most common we’ve seen used. Adobe defines these four models as follows:

• Last Touch: gives 100% credit to the touch point occurring most recently before conversion.

• First Touch: gives 100% credit to the touch point first seen in the attribution lookback window.

• Participation: gives 100% credit to all unique touch points. The total number of conversions is inflated compared to other attribution models. Participation deduplicates channels that are seen multiple times.

• Linear: gives equal credit to every touch point seen leading up to a conversion.

For the complete list, check out Adobe’s helpful documentation on Attribution Models and Lookback Windows.

Lookback windows

When it comes to attribution modeling, on top of selecting your attribution model, you must also consider your lookback window. A lookback window is the time period in which interactions should be included. For example, if you visited the Nike site once in January but didn’t return to the site again until March, should your initial visits be counted towards your conversion? That depends on your lookback window.

A 7-day or 14-day lookback window is commonly used, but you can do 30 days, three months or even longer. Consider your typical sales cycle when making this decision.

Example of different attribution models

Now that you have a basic understanding of your attribution model options and lookback windows, let’s go back to our sneaker purchase. As mentioned above, you did the following:

1. Clicked on an SEM ad and signed up for Nike’s mailing list.

2. One week later, Nike emailed a coupon and you clicked the link and returned to the website.

3. Finally, three days after that, you searched for Nike, clicked on an organic listing, and then made a purchase.

From your initial click on the paid add to the purchase of your new sneakers, 10 days have passed.

Now let’s review how Last Touch, First Touch, Participation, and the Linear Attribution models with a 14-day lookback window will attribute your purchase.

As you can see in the illustration above, Last Touch gives SEO the credit, First Touch gives SEM the credit, Participation gives each channel full credit, and Linear divides the purchase credit equally across all channels. To put it another way:

Now that you understand the different models, continue following along below to learn how to add an Attribution IQ panel to your dashboard.

Add to your SEO dashboard

Ready to add to your dashboard? In this section, we’ll be adding the following:

1. Calculated Conversion Rate Metric for SEO Order Attributions

2. Conversion Rate Scorecards for SEO Order Attribution

3. Attribution IQ

1. Calculated Conversion Rate Metric for SEO Order Attributions

In Chapter Two, we created two new panels: a First Touch Order Attribution panel and a Last Touch Order Attribution Panel. Now, we will also show you how to expand upon these further by creating a calculated metric to show the conversion rate, both in the table and as a scorecard metric.

In this example, we will create a calculated metric for Order / Visits, but note that Orders can be substituted for other metrics. All in all, this calculated metric will help you compare SEO to your other marketing channels so that you can analyze your website’s strengths and weaknesses.

1. To start, if you have not done so already, follow our instructions in Chapter Two and create a First Touch Order Attribution Panel and a Last Touch Order Attribution Panel.

2. Often, the quickest way to create calculated metrics is from within your table. Select Visits, hold down Shift, and select Orders. Then, right click and select Create Metric from Selection > Open in Calculated Metric Builder. The Calculated Metric Builder will open.

3. With the Calculated Metric Builder open, the first thing you’ll notice is that the order of operations is incorrect. Select Visits in the definition panel and drag it under Orders.

You should then have the metric set up correctly like this:

4. Change the Format to Percent, rename the metric Conversion Rate in the Title box, and click Save.

5. Finally, search for your newly created metric in the components panel on the left side of your screen. Take your newly created Conversion Rate and drag and drop next to Orders. You should then have the following table, and you are all set!

6. Lastly, the easiest way to recreate this for Last Touch Channel is to duplicate and adjust the report. Right click anywhere outside the table in the panel (just to the right of the title is the best place) and select Duplicate visualization. Find Last Touch Channel and drag and drop over the top of First Touch Channel. How easy was that?

2. Conversion Rate Scorecards for SEO Order Attribution

Now that you have an Order Attribution freeform table with a Conversion Rate, let’s build upon that with some Conversion Rate Scorecards. If you followed our dashboard guide in Chapter One, you may already have some Scorecards (or Summary Numbers, as Adobe Analytics calls it), in your dashboard. These will be very similar.

1. Right click on the Conversion % Value for the SEO channel in the First Touch Channel report (in our example, it is 69%). Click Visualize > Summary Number. A Summary Number box will appear.

2. Click on the small, colorful circle to the left of the title of your new Summary Number box. Next, check Lock Selection and ensure the drop down is Selected Items, not Selected Positions. This will keep the scorecard locked to the Natural Search value and prevent you from accidentally making changes. Rename the chart to First Touch SEO Conversion Rate.

3. Repeat steps 1-2 for your Last Touch Report.

4. Lastly, resize and reposition the charts as you see fit. We like the following arrangement, but feel free to customize to your particular needs:

3. Attribution IQ Panel

Lastly, let’s create an Attribution IQ Panel to explore additional attribution models. When using Attribution IQ models for channel analysis, you can simply use the Marketing Channel dimension. (The Explicit First Touch Channel / Last Touch Channel dimensions we used in the previous report are no longer necessary when using the attribution models.)

Fortunately, Adobe Analytics already has some attribution report templates that you can use to create an Attribution IQ Panel in just a few clicks!

1. First, add a new panel and click Attribution. Your panel will automatically update with some new prompts.

2. Under Success Metric select Orders, under Channel select Marketing Channel, under Included Models select First Touch, Last Touch, and Linear, and lastly, under Lookback Window select 14 Days. Feel free to adjust any of these variables based on your unique Adobe Analytics implementation. Your panel should now look like this:

3. Next, click Build.

4. That’s it! You will then have a very useful set of Attribution reports. The reports will include the different attribution models that you selected in the configuration screen.

As you can see, this Attribution IQ Panel is filled with information. If you’re interested in learning more, we recommend watching Adobe Analytics’ Using the Attribution IQ Panel video and reviewing their helpful documentation on Attribution Models and Lookback Windows.

That’s a wrap!

This concludes our Adobe Analytics SEO journey. We hope you now feel inspired, confident, and have a dashboard filled with helpful SEO-focused data.