Well, remember that in my past post I was talking about trusting your main source of value to a third party that can have a different objective/s than yours?
I also mentioned the example of using Google Attribution Model. Well, if I would be Google I would try with all my might to be the one that sets the standard of the attribution model the people use. Why? Because the attribution model is the one that tells you how and where you should invest your advertising budget. So, apparently Google is aligned with that idea, because has just launched their “free Google Attribution” model. Great news! Now I understand the enthusiasm of the Google Groupies cheering all around!
So now “Google is bringing attribution to the masses with the new free version of Google Attribution” and all the Google groupies are wowing and clapping and giving thanks because finally Google discovered that “The long-running problem with last-click attribution is that the model ignores any touch point — e.g., email, display impressions, generic search ads — that precedes the final touch before a conversion”. Wow, really? I didn’t see that coming. So, what should we do with the tons of million dollars dropped last years for using completely useless attribution model based on a set of discretionary models? Oh…I got it.
So, let’s talk about the pros:
- It’s free.
- …
How about the cons? Well, to evaluate something we should have information on that thing, but you know what? No info, so I’ll try to evaluate based on the information I found.
- Objective utility: We have no idea how does it work so we don’t know if it is a good or a bad product. There’s no official communication from Google that tells people a single word of the technical aspects of the “Solution”. Do you know any product, not even an iphone, that people cheers it launch before even knowing what is the product about? No that I remember.
- Conflict of interest: Have you realized that it’s a real obvious conflict of interest in all this matter? Are you going to base your advertising decisions in the recommendation of one interested party is giving you? Ok, good luck on that.
- 360 View: The websites and Google Groupies that are sharing the information talk about the native connection between the Attribution Model and other Google services but not with other media channels. An attribution model should evaluate all your investment and tells you which one are the better for the results you are trying to achieve, not to compare which Google Adwords keywords are performing better. I’m not saying that this is really the case, just repeating what I found in the media. But If it’s Google centric, it is a real problem.